500 PRIMARY FACTORS OF O.IGANIC EVOLUTION. 



at the inception, and its necessity for the continuance 

 of the habit. 



If we examine muscular movements, the evidence 

 of control by consciousness becomes more distinct. 

 New conditions bring forth new acts in animals too 

 frequently to permit us to believe otherwise. Thus 

 Mr. Belt tells of a procession of ants which crossed a 

 railroad in Panama. Many were killed on the rail, so 

 the column excavated a passage beneath the rail, and 

 thus escaped further injury. No one can reasonably 

 deny the intervention of a conscious state of a high 

 order, as directly controlling the muscular movements 

 of those ants. According to Beauchamp, termites in 

 the same region display similar intelligence. A num- 

 ber of them were confined in a deep glass vessel with 

 smooth sides which they could not scale. They there- 

 upon deposited drops of their building secretion, which 

 hardens on drying, on the glass, ascending backwards, 

 and so made a stair out of their prison, by which they 

 escaped. 



A Cebus capucinus in my possession imitated some 

 carpenters who were working in the room with a draw- 

 ing-knife. He used a triangular piece of tin, and, 

 holding the corners, drew the edge towards him over 

 the surface of a piece of squared wood on which he 

 sat. He did this rapidly and repeatedly, with many 

 grimaces. A Cebus apella in the Philadelphia Zoologi- 

 cal Garden lights matches whenever he can get them. 

 He always selects the proper end, and holds it at a 

 proper distance, so that the stick is not broken and his 

 fingers are not burned. He strikes them on the rough 

 outside of his drinking-kettle. My Cebus came direct 

 from the forests of Venezuela, and he had not been j 

 educated among carpenters. The history of the apella 



