INSECT BEHAVIOR 365 
the worker Polistes does not learn to feed the larvee by imi- 
tating the queen. 
It is extremely difficult, however, if not impossible, to draw 
the line between instinct and intelligence; and in doubtful cases 
there is a general tendency to exaggerate the importance of 
intelligence rather than that of instinct. For example, the 
well-known discrimination on the part of ants between mem- 
bers of their own colony and those of other colonies, even of 
the same species, would seem to imply intelligent recognition. 
This recognition, however, is due simply to a characteristic 
odor, which is derived from the mother of the community. 
An ant after being washed receives hostile treatment from 
others of its own colony; while an alien ant after being 
smeared with the juices of hostile ants is treated by the latter 
as a friend. 
Each instance of apparent intelligence must be examined 
impartially on 1ts own merits. At present it may be said that, 
while most of the behavior of insects is purely instinctive, there 
is some reason to believe that at least gleams of intelligence 
appear in the most specialized Hymenoptera. 
Lack of Rationality.—However intelligent the social Hy- 
menoptera may be in their way, they show no signs of the 
power of abstract reasoning. Even ants, according to the 
experiments of Lubbock, display profound stupidity in the 
face of novel emergencies when they might extricate them- 
selves by abstract reasoning of the simplest kind. The 
thoughts of an ant or bee seem to be limited to simple associa- 
tions of concrete things. Miss Enteman observed a Polistes 
worker which gnawed a piece out of the side of a dead larva 
of its own kind and, turning, actually offered it as food to the 
mouth of the same larva. In another instance, a larva was 
attacked and killed, and then offered a piece of its own body. 
Such examples as these emphasize the strength of the reflex 
factor in the behavior of insects. Indeed, the basis of all 
behavior is being sought in the reactions of protoplasm to 
external stimuli. Possibly even memory, consciousness and 
other attributes of intelligence will eventually be reduced to 
this basis, improbable as it may now seem. 
