NATUKh 



501 



THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 1881 



MIND IN ANIMALS 

 Mind in Animals. By Prof. Ludwig Biiclincr, author of 

 " F"orce and Matter," &c. Translated, by the author's 

 permission, from the German of the Third Revised 

 Edition, by Annie Bcsant. (London: Free-thought 

 Pubhshing Company, r88o. ) 



THE translation into English of Biichner's work on 

 " Mind in Animals" (which was originally published 

 in 1876) cannot but be welcome to persons of all shades 

 of opinion, however greatly opinions may differ as to the 

 auspices of the Company which has undertaken and 

 published the translation. The Company, among other 

 things, undertakes the translation of works from foreign 

 languages in the form of a series entitled "The Inter- 

 national Library of Science and Free-thought," and of 

 this scries Biichner's work on " Mind in Animals " con- 

 stitutes the first member. It is to be hoped that the 

 subsequent efforts of the Company in this direction will 

 prove as useful and beneficial as the one we are about 

 to consider. The translation has here, on the whole, 

 been well done, although occasionally we meet with an 

 awkwardness of construction which a little more care 

 in re-casting the sentences might easily have obviated. 

 The work itself is without question a highly valuable 

 compilation of facts relating to Comparative Psychology, 

 and therefore its translation into English supplies a 

 fitting occasion for our endeavouring to recommend it to 

 the notice of English readers. 



Although the work is called " Mind in Animals," and 

 fills between three and four hundred closely-printedipagesj 

 it only deals with the psychology of articulata^ and even 

 of this comparaiivcly limited group it treats only of four 

 orders, viz. the liyiiienoplera, Orthoptera, Ararhnidit, and 

 Coleoplcra. No one, however, can read the work and 

 feel that this limitation of its subject-matter is a defect, al- 

 though in view of it the title might perhaps have been 

 appropriately changed to "Mind in Insects.'" As he 

 says in his preface, " the author has not thought it neces- 

 sary to widen the circle of his observations over the 

 whole of the comparatively narrow and yet infinitely wide 

 and rich sphere of intelligent insect life ; he considers it 

 better. . . to treat a single species thoroughly, rather than 

 many species cursorily and superficially," &c. Such being 

 the author's aim, he appears to have read most' of the 

 existing literature upon the subject that is worth reading, 

 and then made a compilation, tolerably well sifted, of all the 

 more important facts. These he has presented in a form 

 at once highly entertaining to a general reader of the 

 lowest intelligence, and most useful alike to the working 

 naturalist and the evolutionary psychologist. The labour 

 represented by the result is very considerable, and Biich- 

 ner deserves all thanks and praise, both from the scientific 

 and non-scientific public, for the patient industry with 

 which, like the ant or the bee that he is so fond of up- 

 holding as a model, he has collected and arranged his 

 materials. 



More than three-fourths of the book is devoted to ants 

 and bees, and this portion constitutes a compendium of 

 facts regarding the psychology of these interesting animals 



' The Arachnida arc called by Buchncr iasccts, in accordance with popular 

 usage. 



Vol. XXIII. — No. 596 



which we do not hesitate to regard as the most instructivo 

 that has hitherto been made. There arc however no 

 origin;d observations in the book — or r.Ulicr no original 

 observations recorded as made by Biichner himself, for 

 there arc several highly interesting observations recorded 

 as made by friends and correspondents. Some of the 

 more important of these wo may here present. 



Ilerr l.chr, a "bee-keeping friend of the author," 

 noticed that when his bees were attacked by dysentery, 

 and " no longer able to retain their excrements, one hive 

 suffered less than the others." Investigation showed that 

 the bees of this hive had made a drain from the upper 

 part of the hive, " where they were accustomed to sit 

 together during the winter," to the exterior. 



The saiuc (?) friend observed that when the wind blew 

 down one of his hives and he replaced it, a few days later 

 " the bees had left their old home in the lurch, and tried 

 to enter other hives, clearly because they could no longer 

 trust the weather, and feared that the terrible accident 

 might .-ig.un befall them." 



Another friend, Herr Schhitcr, saw a hornet catch a 

 cicada, sting it, and try to fly off with the bulky prey. 

 The hornet's strength not being sufficient to enable it to 

 fly with ihe cicada from the ground, it dragged its burden 

 up the stump of a mulberry-tree that stood close by. 

 Arrived at the top of the stump— twelve feet from the 

 ground — " it reited for a moment, grasped its victim firmly, 

 and flew off with it to the prairies. That which it was un- 

 able to raise off the ground it could now carry easily once 

 high in the air." 



Again, Ilerr Merkel communicates the following. He 

 saw a little grey wasp dragging a long caterpillar to its 

 hole. Arrived there, it put one end of the caterpillar over 

 the hole, "and went to the other end and lifted it up so high 

 that the caterpillar fell in. But a piece of it stuck out " ; 

 so the wasp pulled it out, and, laying it down near the hole, 

 "went in again and brought out several little stones of the 

 size of small peas. It then again let the caterpillar fall 

 into the hole in the way described." This time it was 

 quite absorbed by the hole, and was buried by the wasp. 



More interesting is an observation due to Herr Nottc- 

 bohin. Inspector of Buildings at Karlsruhe, who carefully 

 syringed off all the aphides from a weeping-ash in March, 

 to the great benefit of the tree. But in June he was 

 astonished to see multitudes of ants running up and down 

 the trunk of the tree, busied in carrying up aphides all 

 over the tree in order to re-stock it, and " after some 

 weeks the evil was as great as ever." 



Ag.iin Herr Theuerkauf showed Biichner a maple tree, 

 round which he had " smeared about a foot-width of the 

 ground with tar," in order to check the mischief caused 

 by ants cultivating aphides. But the ants on the tre 

 turned back on finding the tar, and " carried down aphides, 

 which they stuck down on the tar one after another, until 

 they had made a bridge over which they could cross the 

 tar-ring without danger." 



Highly interesting also is an observation communicated 

 to the author by Herr Kreplin concerning the Ecitons 

 crossing streams, which is even more wonderful than any- 

 thing that has been related of these wonderful insects by 

 Bates or Belt. " If no natural bridge is available for the 

 passage, they travel along the.bank of the river until they 

 arrive at a flat sandy shore. Each ant now seizes a bit of 



