68 Chapter IF. 



ant (Formica sanguinea), which I shall describe later 

 on in detail, I kept Formica rufa together with three 

 other Formica species as so-called slaves. Formica 

 rufa, however, regularly distinguished herself from the 

 other species by the eagerness with which she endeav- 

 ored to carry into the interior of the nest any object 

 that attracted her attention, be it a particle of food 

 or a guest (Lomechusa strumosa) which wished to be 

 fondled. To impute a selfish theft to a hill ant is 

 biological nonsense. 



What the critic actually did see is confined to the 

 few facts, that one hill ant tried to drag a spider in 

 a different direction to the beaten track and away from 

 the main nest ; that, finally, several other ants arrived 

 from the colony and dragged the booty homeward. The 

 observer ought to have carefully followed the "thievish" 

 ant. Then he might have noticed that a party which 

 originally belonged to the main colony, had founded a 

 branch settlement nearby, to which the pretended "thief" 

 belonged, and towards which she naturally tried to drag 

 the spider. The larger nests of hill ants often have 

 one or more sister nests, and whoever observes the pro- 

 ceedings of ants can easily witness similar events at 

 spots where the path from the main colony crosses the 

 track to a sister nest. But to embellish an isolated, in- 

 complete and misinterpreted observation into a romantic 

 "detective story," which is finally brought to a crisis 

 by the interference of the "police," is surely one of the 

 most splendid exploits of modern animal psychology. 



However, we would wrong the gentleman by assert- 

 ing that he told his attractive ant story in full earnest. 

 It appeared to us from the very outset that he meant 



