100 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



sill for ants coming up from the garden. In consequence of 

 Herr Gredler's communications he took it into his head to put 

 the bait for the ants, pounded sugar, into an old inkstand, and 

 hung this up by a string to the cross-piece of his window, and 

 left it hanging freely. A few ants were in with the bait. 

 These soon found their road out over the string with their grains 

 of sugar, and so their way back to their friends. Before long a 

 procession was arranged on the new road from the window-sill 

 along the string to the spot where the sugar was, and so things 

 went on for two days, nothing fresh occurring. But one day 

 the procession stopped at the old feeding-place on the window- 

 sill, and took the food thence, without going up to the pendent 

 sugar-jar. Closer observation revealed that about a dozen of 

 the rogues were in the jar above, and were busily and unweary- 

 ingly carrying the grains of sugar to the edge of the pot, and 

 throwing them over to their comrades down below. 



Many other instances of tlie division of labour might 

 be given besides these, and those to be mentioned here- 

 after in other connections throughout the course of the 

 present chapter ; but enough has been said to show that 

 the principle is unquestionably acted upon by sundry 

 species of ants. 



That ants are liable to make mistakes, and, when they 

 do, that they profit by experience, is shown by the follow- 

 ing experiment made by Moggridge ; and many other in- 

 staiices might be given were it desirable : — 



It sometiines happens that an ant has manifestly made a bad 

 selection, and is told on its return that what it has brought 

 home with much pains is no better than rubbish, and is hustled 

 out of the nest, and forced to throw its burden away. In order 

 to try whether these creatures were not fallible like other 

 mortals, I one day took out with me a little packet of grey and 

 white porcelain beads, and scattered these in the path of a har- 

 vesting train. They had scarcely lain a minute on the earth 

 before one of the largest workers seized upon a bead, and with 

 some difficulty clipped it with its mandibles and trotted back at 

 a great pace to the nest. I waited for a little while, my atten- 

 tion being divided between the other ants who were vainly en- 

 deavouring to remove the beads, and the entrance down which 

 the worker had disappeared, and then left the spot. On my 

 return in an hour's time, I found the ants passing unconcernedly 

 by and over the beads which lay where I had strewed them in 



