76 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



conception. Mr. Romanes quotes from Mr. Belt an 

 anecdote concerning ants in South America which 

 learnt to tunnel under the rails of a tramway. But 

 such facts need surprise no one who remembers some 

 of the more wonderful actions of ordinary insects 

 nearer home. No doubt these burrowing ants were 

 well-accustomed to make tunnels, and had instinctively 

 made them again and again on the occurrence of other ob- 

 stacles to surface progression. To say, as Mr. Romanes 

 says, " Clearly, the insects must have appreciated the 

 nature " of the obstacles, " and correctly reasoned out the 

 only way by which they could be avoided," is not a little 

 absurd. If they could really appreciate a " nature," and 

 truly " reason out " a way to avoid injuries, we should 

 quickly have such plainly and distressingly inconvenient 

 evidence of their rationality, that there would be no 

 need to go so far as to South America to find an instance 

 of it. 



With respect to the fear which wolves have of traps 

 and their detection of man by the sense of smell, the 

 following remark is cited* from Leroy : " In this case 

 the wolf can only have an abstract idea of danger — the 

 precise nature of the trap laid for him being unknown." 

 That the wolf has a fear of man, no one can doubt, and 

 it is highly probable that his sense of smell would lead 

 him to abstain from taking a bait. This would be 

 enough to account for the fact cited, without crediting 

 the animal with " an abstract idea of danger," to credit 

 it with which is to credit it with an intellect such as 

 man has. Mr. Romanes also tells us that Leroy "well 



* P- 53. 



