AMONG THE NUTS. 119 



and yet take no apparent notice because the circum- 

 stances are not interesting, and the experiment is to 

 them unintelligible. Fishes in particular have been often, 

 I think, erroneously judged in this way, and have been 

 considered deaf, and to have little intelligence, while in 

 truth the fact is we havo not discovered a way of com- 

 municating with them any more than they have found 

 a way of talking with us. Fishes, I know, are keener of 

 sight than I am when they are interested, and I believe 

 they can hear equally well, and are not by any means 

 without mind. These ants that acted so foolishly to 

 appearance may have been influenced by some former 

 experience of which we know nothing ; there may be 

 something in the past history of the ant which may lead 

 them to profoundly suspect interference with their path 

 as indicative of extreme danger. Once, perhaps, many 

 ant-generations ago, there was some creature which acted 

 thus in order to destroy them. This, of course, is merely 

 an illustration put forward to suggest the idea that there 

 may be a reason in the brain of the ant of which we 

 know nothing. I do not know that I myself am any 

 more rational, for looking back along the path of life 

 I can see now how I turned and twisted and went to 

 the right and the left in the most crooked manner, putting 

 myself to endless trouble, when by taking one single 

 step straight forward in the right direction, if I had only 

 known, I might have arrived at once at the goal. Can 

 any of us look beyond the little ridge of one day and 

 see what will happen the day after ? Some hours after- 

 wards, towards evening, I found the ants were beginning 

 to get over their difficulty. On one side an ant would 

 go forward in a half-circle, on the other another ant 

 would advance sideways, and meeting together they 

 would touch their antennae, and then the first would 



