AXTS AXD ANT LIFE. 129 



easily pass. The great black ants of the East Indies were 

 seen by Sykes to act in a yet more ingenious way. " In 

 Sykes' house the dessert was placed on a table in a locked 

 verandah, and covered with a cloth, the legs being placed in 

 vessels of water. But the ants waded through, or, if the 

 water were too deep, clung to each other with their strong 

 legs, and so reached the. feet of the table and the Chinese 

 sweetmeats, and although hundreds were killed every day, 

 the next day saw new crowds. Sykes then surrounded the 

 legs of the table with a ring of turpentine, but after a few 

 days they were again among the sweet fruits. The edge of 

 the table stood about an inch from the wall. The large 

 ants clung to the wall with their hind legs and stretched the 

 fore legs across to the edge of the table, and so many 

 managed to cross. Sykes pulled the table further away 

 from the wall, but they then climbed up the wall to about a 

 foot above the table, gave a spring and fell on the fruits " 

 (Perty, p. 341). 



The ants are as greedy about syrup and syrup-like fluids 

 as they are about sugar, honey, and sweet fruits. Their 

 cleverness in discovering these is so great, that as the 

 instinct-mongers say, their instinct " borders on human 

 reason ; " in reality it is reason, and often surpasses the human 

 acuteness which it is thus vainly sought to defend. When 

 an ant has found such a treasure, it first obeys the inflexible 

 law of egoism, and fills its own stomach as much as possible, 

 until it is quite swollen. It then remembers its duties to its 

 felloAvmen, or rather fellow-ants, and after it has left the 

 place, returns in a short time with a number of its comrades, 

 which now do the same. 



Dr. Franklin (cited in " Bingley," iv., p. 176,) tells how, 

 in order to test the intelligence of the ants, he put a little 

 earthen pot filled with treacle into an out-of-the-way closet. 

 The ants soon appeared in crowds, and devoured the treacle. 

 He then drove them away, and hung the pot from the ceiling 

 by a string, so that, as he thought, no ant could reach it. 

 A single ant was accidentally left behind in the pot. It eat 

 as much treacle as it could, and then wanted to get away. 

 After long searching it found the string, and made its way 

 back along it. By way of the ceiling and down the wall it 

 again reached the ground. But it had hardly been away an 

 hour when a large swarm of ants arrived, climbed up the 



