132 Chapter VII. 



such phenomena. One can get an angry dog to snap 

 at its own leg or tail by holding them before its mouth. 

 Still the dog undoubtedly feels a physiological pain 

 similar to what we would feel in being injured. It is 

 evidently the want of intelligence, of reflective mental 

 self-consciousness that induces the dog to act so fool- 

 ishly. This case has affinity with an observation I made 

 on June 17, 1896, when engaged in the study of a very 

 "intelligent" species of ants, the formica sanguinea. 

 With a pair of pincers I put back a worker that had 

 strayed from a nest under observation. Thereupon she 

 tried to bite the pincers, and in doing so chanced to get 

 one of her fore-legs between her jaws. On being re- 

 turned to the nest, she began to fight with her own leg, 

 bit it, pulled it, and even bent up her abdomen in order 

 to eject poison upon the offensive member, and only 

 regained her tranquility after the lapse of one or two 

 minutes. Even higher animals often act in a similar 

 manner in fits of rage. 



The brain of ants and of bees is relatively little 

 inferior in size to that of dogs and monkeys ; and even 

 years ago Ch. Darwin called attention to the physio- 

 logical importance of the mighty development of the 

 cephalic ganglia in the "workers" of social insects, par- 

 ticularly of ants. 1 Especially remarkable is the devel- 

 opment of the peduncles, 2 the foldings of which make 

 them resemble the cerebral convolutions of higher ver- 

 tebrates in a remarkable degree and seem to represent, 

 as it were, even physiologically, the grayish matter of 

 the cerebrum. According to Vitus Graber the volume 



1 ) Darwin, "Descent of Man," I. (2d German edition), p. 125. 



2 ) See Aug. Forel, "Les fourmis de la Suisse," p. 122, ss. 



