CARNIVOROUS ANTS 57 



that they recognized them by the smell of my fingers, 

 for two pebbles which I did not touch but added to 

 the platform on the point of a knife were allowed to 

 remain. 



I know the danger of applying a human motive to 

 the behaviour of any insect, yet I could not escape 

 the impression that the building of this platform of 

 pebbles was the most remarkable instance of division 

 of labour in an ant community that I had ever seen 

 and the strongest testimony to their possession of 

 intelligence. 



In the mountains of Kashmir I have seen a narrow 

 path crossing a dangerous landslip and a Kashmiri 

 workman building up a rampart of stones to prevent 

 the traveller from losing his foothold and falling down 

 to his destruction. That certainly would be described 

 as an intelligent action on the part of the workman. 

 Nor can I see much difference between the mental 

 attitude of that laborious little ant which spent hour 

 after hour building up a platform of stones to save its 

 fellow-ants from tumbling down the slope and the 

 mental condition of the Kashmiri workman who 

 laboured to build a stony rampart to prevent his 

 fellow-creatures from rolling down into the valley. 



This wonderful method of building up pebbles at 

 the mouth of the nest is also undertaken by them 

 under different conditions. I have seen a nest so 

 situated that the earth thrown out by the ants formed 

 a circular hill around the aperture, and the excavated 

 earth tended to fall back into the nest. But the ants 

 overcame the threatened calamity by detailing one of 

 their number to build a rampart of stones around the 

 opening of the nest inside the circular hillock an<4 



