HARVESTING, TRAILS, GETTING LOST 81 



home. Yet, the next day they were climbing over the 

 stone pile, as before. 



ANT. That was all right. 



KENNETH. Who told the ants about the seeds and 

 where they were? Why, a hundred and fifty workers and 

 guards poured out of the nest in ten minutes, after the 

 kernels. They moved several abreast at first. 



ALBERT. If I should drop an ant on a trail on which 

 ants were going both ways and carrying nothing, would it 

 know which way home is? 



KENNETH. I left six ants on a pile of melon seed three 

 feet from a trail on which ants were going both ways and 

 carrying nothing. After fifteen minutes' search the six 

 ants got the odor and started for the runway. Two of the 

 six picked up one seed each and took them along, so I 

 could follow these after they had joined the others on the 

 trail. 



ALBERT. What did you find out? 



KENNETH. One of them see-sawed toward and away 

 from the nest several times when it struck the trail, until 

 it was nine feet further from home than when it first hit 

 the runway. It then turned and went straight to the nest. 



ALBERT. What about the other one? 



KENNETH. After going fifteen feet in the wrong direc- 

 tion on the trail it came to a well-known wooden trough 

 and then turned and went home with its load. 



CECIL. Like us, the two ants didn't know which way 

 home was until they came to some familiar object, maybe. 



KENNETH. The ants going both ways may have con- 

 fused them. 



ALBERT. Could one ant track another by the odor left 

 by the feet? 



