Wars and Slavery in the Animal Kingdom. 69 



pie of their parents. If we interpret "tradition and 

 instruction" in this sense, it must be acknowledged 

 that they aid in the exercise of the hereditary instincts 

 both in ants and in the higher animals. But, on the 

 other hand, it is equally obvious, that in this case the 

 terms "tradition" and "instruction" mean something 

 very different from what modern animal psychologists 

 wish to insinuate ; for, in our case, they do not imply 

 any intelligent communication of knowledge, but only 

 the instinctive excitation of the imitative faculty. 



But in the communities of social insects not even 

 the encouraging example of the older companions is 

 necessary for the first actuation of the young workers' 

 instincts. We have ascertained by experiments, that 

 precisely the most remarkable and apparently most 

 intelligent habits of the sanguine slavemakers, namely 

 their rearing of slaves and the hospitable care bestowed 

 by them on the beetle Lomechusa strumosa, are merely 

 hereditary instincts, for the exercise of which no kind 

 of "instruction" on the part of the older ants is 

 needed. 1 To prove this we formed a special colony of 

 "self-taught" young workers of F. sanguinea, by plac- 

 ing in a glass filled with a sufficient quantity of earth 

 a number of ants that were newly developed from their 

 cocoons in my artificial nest. These self-taught ants 

 not only performed all the works required for building 

 their nest, just as the other individuals of their species, 

 but they also followed the very same line of conduct 

 in nursing their young and even in dealing with 

 strange worker pupae which I introduced into their 



*) L. c., p. 202, and "Die internationalen Beziehungen von Lome- 

 chusa strumosa" in the "Biologisches Centralblatt," XII (1892), 592. 



