80 ON THE HABITS OF ANTS. [LECT. 



After trying for about a quarter of an hour they gave up 

 the attempt, and returned home. This I repeated several 

 times. Then, thinking that paper was a substance to 

 which they were not accustomed, I tried the same with a 

 bit of straw one inch long and one- eighth of an inch 

 wide. The result was the same. I repeated this twice. 

 Again I placed particles of food close to and directly 

 over the nest, but connected with it only by a passage 

 several feet in length. Under these circumstances it 

 would be obviously a saving of time and labour to drop 

 the food on to the nest, or at any rate to spring down 

 with it, so as to save one journey. But though I have 

 frequently tried the experiment, my ants never adopted 

 either of these courses. I arranger] matters so that the 

 glass on which the food was placed was only raised one- 

 third of an inch above the nest. The ants tried to reach 

 down, and the distance was so small that occasionally, if 

 another ant passed underneath just as one was reaching 

 down, the upper one could step on to its back, and so 

 descend ; but this only happened accidentally, and they 

 did not think of throwing the particles down, nor, which 

 surprised me very much, would they jump down them- 

 selves. I then placed a heap of fine mould close to the 

 glass, but just so far that they could still not reach 

 across. It would have been quite easy for any ant, by 

 moving a particle of earth for a quarter of an inch, 

 to have made a bridge by which the food might have 

 been reached, but this simple expedient did not occur to 

 them. On the other hand, I then put some provisions in 

 a shallow box with a glass top, and a single hole on one 

 side, arid put some specimens of Lasius niger to the food. 

 As soon as a stream of ants was at work, busily carrying 



