326 Tropical Zoology. [July, 
gone for assistance, for in a short time about a dozen ants 
came hurrying up, evidently fully informed of the circum- 
stances of the case, for they made directly for their im- 
prisoned comrade and soon set him free. I do not see how 
this action could be instinctive. It was sympathetic help, 
such as man only among the higher mammalia shows.” 
We need not feel surprised if an observer accustomed to 
scrutinise the animal world so closely feels sceptical on the 
subject of ‘‘instinét.” That notion is all very well for 
literateurs, lawyers, divines, or poets, who dabble a little in 
zoology, or for mere closet book-worms, who only catch a 
faint refleCtion of facts. But the naturalist of the field and 
the forest, though he recognises zmstincts in the lower 
animals, as in man himself, can but smile at ‘“‘ zmstinct,” 
viewed as a mysterious entity, antithetically opposed to 
reason and supposed to act as its substitute in ‘‘ our poor 
relations.” The mutual helpfulness of ants is the more 
significant since, amongst social mammalia and birds, the 
tribe generally attack and put to death any of their number 
that suffers from an accident. The author gives two more 
instances of reason in ants. “I once saw a wide column 
trying to pass along a crumbling, nearly perpendicular slope. 
They would have got very slowly over and many of them 
would have fallen, but a number having secured their hold 
and reaching to each other, remained stationary, and over 
them the main column passed. Another time they were 
crossing a water-course along a small branch, not thicker © 
than a goose-quill. They widened this natural bridge to 
three times its width by a number of ants clinging to it and 
to each other on each side, over which the column passed 
three or four abreast ; whereas, excepting for this expedient, 
they would have had to pass over in single file and triple the 
time would have been consumed.” In face of such facts the 
author asks—‘‘ Can it be contended that such insects are 
not able to determine by reasoning powers which is the best 
way of doing a thing, or that their actions are not guided by 
thought and reflection?’ This view is much strengthened 
by the fact that the cerebral ganglia are more developed in 
ants than in any other insect, and that in all the Hymenop- 
tera, at the head of which they stand, they are many times 
larger than in the less intelligent orders, such as beetles, or, 
we might add, than in those short-lived emblems of immor- 
tality, the butterflies. 
Again, ‘‘amongst the ants of Central America, I place 
the Eciton as the first in intelligence, and as such, at the 
head of the Articulata. Wasps and bees come next, and 
