120 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 



up from below. They convinced themselves that they could 

 not cross the band without peril of life, and turned back. 

 But Leuckart soon saw them coming back again, each 

 carrying in its jaws a pellet of earth. This earth was 

 placed on the tobacco-soaked barrier, and this was continued 

 until a practicable road was made, on which the little 

 creatures then ran backwards and forwards ! 



An exactly similar incident was observed by the famous 

 Cardinal Fleury (1653-1743), a great admirer of ants, 

 according to the information published by the distinguished 

 French naturalist, Reaumur, in a fragment treating on ants, 

 in his "Natural History of Insects" (1734-42). The 

 Cardinal told Reaumur that he had smeared the trunk of a 

 tree with a ring of birdlime to keep back the ants, and that 

 the ants had surmounted the difficulty by bringing up little 

 pellets of earth, small stones, etc. The same observer saw 

 a number of ants bring little pieces of wood and make there- 

 with a bridge, in order to cross an obstacle put in their way, 

 a vessel of water surrounding the bottom of an orange 

 tub. 



The ants behaved in yet more ingenious fashion under the 

 following very similar circumstances ; Herr G. Theuerkauf , 

 the painter (Wasserthorstr. 49, Berlin), writes to the author, 

 November 18, 1875: "A maple tree standing on the 

 ground of the manufacturer, Vollbaum, of Elbing (now of 

 Dantzic) swarmed with Aphides and ants. In order to 

 check the mischief, the proprietor smeared about a foot- 

 width of the ground round the tree with tar. The first ants 

 who wanted to cross naturally stuck fast. But what did 

 the next ? They turned back to the tree 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. The above named merchant, 

 Vollbaum, is the guarantor of this story, which I received 

 from his own mouth on the very spot whereat it occurred." 



Apart from the very ingenious surmounting of the ob- 

 stacle, what becomes of that innate affection and love for 

 Aphides, which the instinct-philosophers are obliged to 

 ascribe to ants, since, without thought or sympathy for 

 their beloved fosterchildren, they sacrificed them to a dread- 

 ful death, when a higher object seemed at stake ! 



For a scarcely less interesting observation than the 



