134 Chapter III. 



deposited on the honey, with which I fed my ants." 

 In fact, only trivial observers could maintain that in 

 this case the ants had intentionally employed their 

 aphides as bridge-building materials. The correct 

 explanation might rather be the following: the ants, 

 becoming uneasy about their precious aphides living 

 on the tree, tried to save them by carrying them down. 

 By this attempt, however, the aphides literally "got 

 stuck in the mud." It was, no doubt, merely by 

 chance, that the aphides adhering to the tar formed 

 a sort of bridge for the ants. 



These two famous stories are, therefore, far from 

 furnishing any evidence in favor of ant-intelligence. 

 We have to investigate other examples to determine 

 whether or not ants are able by "reasonable reflection" 

 to invent new means for fulfilling their designs. 



Sir John Lubbock 1 has made a number of experi- 

 ments with ants in order to test their intelligence ; some 

 of the more important only can be mentioned here. 

 For the ants of a nest of Lasius niger he arranged a 

 bridge made of a piece of straw or a slip of paper, by 

 which they could get at their larvae. After the ants 

 had become sufficiently familiar with this pathway, 

 he slightly moved the bridge, "so as to leave a chasm, 

 just so wide that the ants could not reach across. They 

 came and tried hard to do so; but it did not occur to 

 them to push the paper bridge, though the distance 

 was only about one-third inch, and they might easily 

 have done so." Another experiment he relates as 

 follows : "I suspended some honey over a nest of 

 L. flavus at a height of about half an inch, and accessi- 



l ) "Ants, bees and wasps," Chap. IX. 



