128 ANTS AND ANT LIFK. 



CHAPTER X. 



INTELLIGENCE AND LANGUAGE. 



love for honey makes ants very dangerous enemies 

 JL of beehives, into which they often win their way in the 

 most cunning and subtle fashion. Karl Vogt relates in his 

 "Animal Societies" a story, since become very well-known, of 

 the apiary of a friend which was invaded by ants. To make 

 this impossible for the future, the four legs of the beehive- 

 stand were put into small, shallow bowls, filled with water, 

 as is often done with food in ant-infested places. The ants 

 soon found a way out of this, or rather a way ^nto their 

 beloved honey, and that over an iron staple with which the 

 stand was attached to a neighboring wall. The staple was 

 removed, but the ants did not allow themselves to be 

 defeated. They climbed into some linden trees standing 

 near, the branches of which hung over the stand, and then 

 dropped upon it from the branches, doing just the same as 

 their comrades do with respect to food surrounded by water, 

 when they drop upon it from the ceiling of the room. In 

 order to make this impossible, the boughs were cut away. 

 But once more the ants were found in the stand, and closer 

 investigation showed that one of the bowls was dried up, 

 and that a crowd of ants had gathered in it. But they 

 found themselves puzzled how to go on with their robbery, 

 for the leg did not, by chance, rest on the bottom of the 

 bowl, but was about half an inch from it. The ants were 

 seen rapidly touching each other with their antennae, or 

 carrying on a consultation, until at last a rather larger ant 

 came forward, and put an .end to the difficulty. It rose to 

 its full height on its hind legs, and struggled until at last it 

 seized a rather projecting splinter of the wooden leg, and 

 managed to take hold of it. As soon as this was done other 

 ants ran on to it, strengthened the hold by clinging, and so 

 made a little living bridge, over which the others could 



