SIE JOIIN LUBBOCK ON ANTS, BEES, AND WASPS. 127 
M. Graber’s observation is, I doubt not, quite correct, but bis 
inference is not well founded, nor was his experiment the same as 
mine. It is quite true that if an ant be started off along a narrow 
paper bridge, she will after awhile turn round and come back 
again. I do not, however, think that this is due, as be suggests, 
to any sense of giddiness. Ants which habitually climb trees 
are not likely to be affected by any such sensation. It is rather, 
1 believe, that they feel they are being sent on a fool’s errand. 
"Why should they start off and run straight forward into a strange 
country ? They turn round in hopes of finding their way home, 
whether the bridge is high or low, broad or narrow, or indeed 
whether they are on any bridge at all. M. Graber has not 
observed that I expressly stated that in each case they stopped 
exactly when they came to the scented pencil. 
Sense or Direction. 
Fabre has made a number of experiments from which he con- 
cludes that bees have a certain sense of direction. My own 
experiments led me to the opposite opinion. I have now repeated 
some of them, and made others, which all led to the same con- 
clusion. For instance I put down some honey on a piece of 
glass, close to a nest of Lasius niger, and when the ants 
were feeding I placed it quietly on the middle of a board 1 ft. 
square and 18 inches from the nest. I did this with 13 ants and 
marked the points at which they left the board. Five of them 
did so on the half of the board nearest to the nest, and 8 on 
that turned away from it ; I then timed 3 of them. They all 
found the nest eventually, but it took them 10, 12, and 20 minutes 
respectively. Again, I took 40 ants which were feeding on some 
honey, and put them down on a gravel-path about 50 yards from 
the nest, and in the middle of a square 18 inches in diameter, 
which I marked out on the path by straws. They wandered 
about with every appearance of having lost themselves, and crossed 
the boundary in all directions. I marked down where they left 
the square and then took them near the nest, which they joyfully 
entered. Two of them, however, we watched for an hour. 
They meandered about, and at the end of the time one was about 
2 feet from where she started, but scarcely any nearer home; the 
other about 6 feet awrny, and nearly as much further from home. 
I prepared a corresponding square on paper, and having indi- 
cated by the arrow the direction of the nest, I marked down the 
spot where each ant passed the boundary. They crossed it in all 
