514 The Outline of Science 



Next day the successful seventeen were taken on a boat to a dis- 

 tance of three kilometres on the lake. When liberated they flew 

 off in all directions, but apparently they missed the necessary 

 signposts, for none of them found their way home. On the 

 other hand, experiments have given results that indicate that 

 bees have a "sense of direction," comparable to that of carrier- 

 pigeons. Even bees with their eyes obscured have been known 

 to make a "bee-line" for the hive from considerable distances. 

 But there is no doubt that bees make cautious and systematical 

 trial "flights of orientation" when a hive is placed in a new 

 position. 



Intelligent Behaviour 



An outstanding feature of Ants is that of instinctive social- 

 isation. They do not live unto themselves, but for the general 

 good of the community. They are indefatigable, but whether 

 they toil consciously for the sake of anything, or what we are 

 to read into their capacity for unified action, who shall say? 



It is difficult to accept the opinion of some naturalists that 

 instinctive behaviour is unaccompanied by any awareness 

 of meaning or feeling of the end. Whenever this difficulty 

 is obvious, it is customary to say that intelligence has for 

 the time being taken the reins. In any case, the facts are 

 wonderful enough. 



It is among the Social Insects that the most pronounced 

 evidences of intelligence are found. 



Intelligence is an eminently social faculty [as Kropotkin 

 says]. Language, imitation, and accumulated experience are 

 so many elements of growing intelligence of which the un- 

 sociable animal is deprived. Therefore we find, at the top 

 of each class of animals, the ants, the parrots, and the 

 monkeys, all combining the greatest sociability with the 

 highest development of intelligence. The fittest are thus 

 the most sociable animals, and sociability appears as the 



