502 



NA TURE 



[March 31, 1 88 1 



dry wood, pulls it into the water, and mounts thereon. 

 The hinder rows push the front ones even further out, 

 holding on to the wood with their feet and to their com- 

 rades with their jaws. In a short time the water is covered 

 with ants, and when the raft has grown too large to be 

 helJ together by the small creatures' strength, a part 

 breaks off and begins its journey across, while the ants left 

 on the bank busily pull their bits of wood into the water 

 and work at enlarging the ferry-boat until it again breaks. 

 This is repeated as long as an ant remains on the shore.'' 



Similarly, Dr. Ellendorf informs the author that he has 

 witnessed ants using a straw for a bridge across a saucer 

 of water which he had placed as a barrier between the 

 ants and his provisions. He then pushed the straw about 

 an inch from one of its two landing-places. After much 

 confusion and crossing of atennje, the ants " soon found 

 out w'lere the fault lay, and with united forces they quickly 

 pulled and pushed the straw until it again came into con- 

 tact with the wood, when the communication was again 

 restored." 



The same observer communicates another very interest- 

 ing observation on the leaf- cutting ants. He interrupted 

 a marching column by placing a withered branch across 

 their road. The loads were laid aside by more than a 

 foot' s length of the column, and the ants began on both 

 sides of the branch to tunnel beneath it, and when the 

 tunnel was completed " each ant took up its burden againi 

 and the march was resumed in the most perfect order." 



These being the most important additions which Prof. 

 Bijchner's work has made to our previous knowledge of 

 insect psychology, we shall now proceed to make a few 

 criticisms upon the work as a whole. In the first place, 

 the author is not quite free from the failing common to less 

 critical writers on animal intelligence, of admitting dubious 

 cases without suffi.:ient reserve. Thus, for instance, on 

 iio better authority than Plutarch, he gives (p. 57) a case 

 '' related by a certain Cleanthes," of ants going from one 

 ant-heap to the entrance of another, carrying a dead ant. 

 Other ants came out of the visited heap, consulted with the 

 bearers of the body, went back again and brought a worm 

 "out of the depths of the nest, which was evidently in- 

 tended to serve as a ransom for the dead body. Then 

 the ants which had brought the corpse left it lying there, 

 and carried away the worm instead." He then adds, 

 " However incredible this may sound, it is beyond doubt 

 that ants and bees have been seen carrying away and even 

 burying their dead, and of this further details will be given 

 later." As the fact of " burying " is highly dubious, we 

 looked forward from this statement to afterwards meeting 

 with some new evidence upon the subject ; but in the 

 case of ants only found the unsupported assertion of 

 Dupont, followed by a confusion of the well-ascertained 

 fact that ants carry their dead away from their nests, with 

 the inference that they bury them (p. 167), while in the 

 case of bees we only met with (p. 249) a very flimsy 

 anecdote, which we had previously read in Watson's 

 " Reasoning Powers of Animals," quoted from the 

 Glasgow Herald on the authority of an anonymous corre- 

 spondent ; it presents a pathetic account of two bees 

 flying out of a hive " carrying between them the corpse of 

 a dead comrade,'' till, after searching for a suitable hole, 

 they " carefuUy pushed in the dead body, head foremost, 

 and finally placed above it two small stones. They then 



watched for about a minute before they flew away" — no 

 doubt, of course, performing some appropriate funeral 

 service. And this is the evidence on which the earlier 

 statement rests, " // is beyond doubt that ants and bees 

 have been seen . . . burying their dead"! Such cases 

 of careless judgment, however, in admitting alleged facts 

 on wholly inadequate evidence, are fortunately in this 

 work exceptional. 



Another point on which criticism has to be offered is 

 the frequent failure of references. Important facts are 

 constantly stated without any information being supplied 

 as to the authority on which the statements rest. Again, 

 even when the authority is stated, after the first time of 

 quoting the reference is always to loc. cit., so that unless 

 the name of the work is carried in the reader's memory, 

 he has to hunt back through an indefinite number of 

 pages of letterpress till he finds it. 



Another feature of the work which must be considered 

 a blemish upon it as a work of science, is a perpetual 

 breaking out of allusions to matters religious and political. 

 The strong bias which the author displays in these digres- 

 sions, apart from being singularly out of place in a treatise 

 which aims at scientific method, constantly leads him 

 into obvious fallacies. For instance, when speaking of 

 ants, he asks, " Why should we take it for granted that in 

 a perfectly free community men would only work if com- 

 pelled, when these animals give proof that such a free 

 commonwealth is very possible, and is compatible with 

 the voluntary work of all?" Certainly any one who is 

 disposed to take such a supposition for granted, would 

 scarcely be convinced by such a false analogy as that 

 between an ant and a man ; and he might very easily 

 show up the nonsense by replying, " Why should we take 

 it for granted that men in a perfectly free community 

 would work without compulsion, when the grasshoppers 

 give proof that such a free commonwealth is very possible, 

 and is compatible with no work at all.?" Such is the 

 logic of many of these passages, and we do not think 

 that in others of the same kind the sentiments are much 

 more fortunate. It is, for instance, to be doubted whether 

 the following picture of " the widest Socialism and Com- 

 munism " as revealed in bees, and held out as an example 

 for humanity to imitate, will prove as attractive to the 

 eyes of all his readers as it evidently appears to the eyes 

 of the writer. "They have no private property, no 

 family, no private dwelling, but hang in thick clumps 

 within the common-room in the narrow space between 

 the combs, taking turns for brief nightly repose" (p. 266). 

 On all such matters opinions may legitimately vary ; but 

 allusions to them are, as we have said, out of place in a 

 treatise on Comparative Psychology. 



Coming next to criticisms of a more purely scientific 

 character, we have first to notice a meagreness with 

 which the whole subject of instinct is treated. In his 

 anxiety to combat the supernaturalists, Biichner errs on 

 the side of too closely assimilating the psychological 

 faculties of insects with those of men. That is to say, he 

 endeavours to explain most, if not all, instinctive action 

 as being one with "reason" and "reflection." But it is 

 an enormous and damaging mistake in the cause of 

 evolution to disparage the distinction which unquestion- 

 ably exists between mind in animals and mind in man. 

 The function of an historical psychologist is to explain 



