62 Chapter II. 



first deprived of her freedom and placed in the arti- 

 ficial nest, then the same method of calculation must 

 be applied in the case of the dog. Mr. Bethe should 

 not, therefore, take for his experiments a domesticated 

 dog, but he would have to operate upon a newly- 

 captured animal of the wild dog species. Then let 

 us see, which would take longer, to tame a wild dog 

 or to tame a wild ant ! 



There are several other interesting analogies 

 between the psychic life of ants and that of dogs. 

 A small dog, as long as he is in the company of his 

 master or of some stronger comrade, will not be afraid 

 to meet a rival, whom otherwise he would try to avoid. 

 The same is the case with the small black negro ants 

 (F. fusca) when they are in company with sanguine as. 

 In their own colonies they are generally cowards. 

 As soon as their nest is disturbed, they flee and try to 

 hide their young, but when they are slaves in colonies 

 of F. sanguinea, they are the bravest defenders of the 

 mixed colony, as I have often experienced to my cost. 

 Just as in the mixed colony of F. sanguinea the 

 instinctive courage of F. fusca, which is otherwise so 

 cowardly, is to be explained psychologically from their 

 perception of the great number of valiant companions 

 and their consequent sense of solidarity, without sup- 

 posing any reasonable deliberation on their part, so 

 also are the different degrees of courage found in 

 different colonies of the sanguine slavemakers to be 

 accounted for. If a numerous population inhabits a 

 rotten fir stump, on the surface of which we find some 

 of the ants running about, a gentle kick will at once 

 call forth a whole army ready for the fray. In a 



