Ill II \\ I 



behavior of ii. purely in-t inc live. 1 1 Ome reason t 



that at least gleams of intelligence appear in llu- mn.-t >pr< iali/.ed 



1 lymenoptcra. 



Lack of Rationality.- llowcu-r intelligent the social Hymcnop 



may he in their way, they shou of thepOWerof abstrft t rca- 



Kven ants, according to tin- experiment > of Luhhot k. display profound 

 stupidity in tin- f;irr of novel emergencies from which they mi^ht 

 extricate' tlu-msi-lvi-s by abstract reasoning of the .simplest kind. Tin- 

 thoughts of an ant or bei- seem to he limited to simp 

 concrete things. Miss I'lnteman observed a Polistes worker which 

 gnawed a piece out of tin- side of a dead larva of its own kind and, turn- 

 ing, actually offered it as food to the mouth of the same larva. In 

 another instance a larva was attacked and killed, and then offered a 

 piece of its own body. 



Such examples as these emphasize the strength of the reflex factor in 

 t he behavior of insects. Indeed, the basis of all behavior is being sought 

 in the reactions of protoplasm to external stimuli. Possibly even mem- 

 ory, consciousness and other attributes of intelligence will eventually be 

 reduced to this basis, improbable as it may now seem. 



