126 INTELLIGENT BEHAVIOUR 
As Romanes says,* “The young ant does not appear to come 
into the world with a full instinctive knowledge of all its 
duties as a member of a social community. It is led about the 
nest and ‘ trained to a knowledge of domestic duties, especially 
in the case of larva.’ Later on, the young ants are taught to 
distinguish between friends and foes.” 
We have only to weigh the evidence brought forward by 
such observers as Fabre and Dr. Peckham to see that among 
the solitary wasps and mason bees the behaviour, though 
founded on instinct, is in large degree modified by intelligence. 
The care with which a site for the tunnelled nest in the 
ground is selected, betokens something more than instinct. 
The following is a slightly condensed statement of Dr. and Mrs. 
Peckham’s observations on one of the solitary wasps (Aporus 
fasciatus).— “We were working one day in the melon-field 
when we saw one of these little wasps going backwards and 
dragging a spider. She twice left it on the ground while she 
circled about for a moment, but soon carried it up on to one 
of the large melon leaves, and left it there while she made a 
long and careful study of the locality, skimming close to the 
ground in and out among the vines; at length she went under 
a leaf close to the ground, and began to dig. After her head 
was well down in the ground we broke off the leaf that we 
might see her method of work. She went on for ten minutes 
without noticing the change, and then, without any circling, 
flew off to visit her spider. When she tried to return to her 
hole it was evident that some landmark was missing, Again 
and again she zig-zagged from the spider to the nesting-place, 
going by a sort of path among the vines from leaf to leaf, and 
from blossom to blossom, but when she reached ‘the spot she 
did not recognize it. At last we laid the leaf back in its place 
over the opening, when she at once went in and resumed her 
work, keeping at it steadily for ten minutes longer. At this 
point she suddenly reversed her operations, and began to fill in 
the hole that she had made. She then glanced at the spider, 
* « Animal Intelligence,” p. 59. 
+ “Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps,” p. 55. 
