68 Chapter II. 



invention of some colony of sanguineas, transmitted 

 by inheritance to all the descendants of the species. 

 Forel, Emery and Smalian fully agree with our tren- 

 chant condemnation 1 of Buechner's manner of human- 

 izing the "slavery" of ants. It does not seem impos- 

 sible, however, that for the actuation of this instinct 

 there should be needed special psychic impulses pro- 

 duced in the young ants by the example and the feeler 

 language of their older companions. Yet, this assump- 

 tion is scarcely probable ; for the formation of new 

 colonies is undertaken, as a general rule, by single 

 impregnated females ; but the females of F. sanguined 

 are devoid of the enslaving instinct, and cannot, there- 

 fore, induce others to manifest it. Yet, since it is the 

 general opinion, that tradition and instruction aid the 

 exercise of the social instincts in these insects, and that 

 the high perfection of their community life receives 

 thereby its full explanation, we will examine whether 

 in view of the facts this opinion is still tenable. 



It is true, in ant communities the instinct of imita- 

 tion plays a great part, as we may gather from several 

 observations recorded above. By the example and the 

 taps of the feelers of their older comrades the younger 

 ants are often induced to actions, which otherwise, 

 at least under the same circumstances, they would not 

 have performed. In this regard, as in fact in the other 

 salient features of the psychic life of animals, ants and 

 the higher animals agree in all the essentials ; for, 

 in the latter also the so-called lessons given to the 

 young by their parents consist only in exciting instinct- 

 ively in the young the faculty of imitation by the exam- 



"Die zusammengesetzten Nester," p. 182. 



