102 EXPERIMENTS WITH BURIED ANTS. 
habit, or really due to a desire to extricate their 
friends. 
With this view I tried the following experiments :— 
(1) On August 20 I placed some honey near a nest 
of Lasius niger on a glass surrounded with water, and 
so arranged that in reaching it the ants passed over 
another glass covered with a layer of sifted earth, about 
one-third of an inch in thickness. I then put some 
ants to the honey, and by degrees a considerable num- 
ber collected round it. Then at 1.30 p.m. I buried an 
ant from the same nest under the earth, and left her 
there till 5 p.m., when I uncovered her. She was none 
the worse, but during the whole time not one of her 
friends had taken the least notice of her. 
(2) I arranged (September 1) some honey again in 
the same way. At 5 P.M. about fifty ants were at the 
honey, and a considerable number passing to and fro. 
J then buried an ant as before, taking of course one 
from the same nest. At 7 p.m. the number of ants at 
the honey had nearly doubled. At 10 P.M. they were 
still more numerous, and had carried off about two- 
thirds of the honey. At 7 a.M. the next morning the 
honey was all gone, two or three were still wandering 
about, but no notice had been taken of the prisoner, 
whom I then let out. In this case I allowed the honey 
to be finished, because I thought it might perhaps be 
alleged that the excitement produced by such a treasure 
distracted their attention, or even (on the principle of 
doing the greatest good to the greatest number) that 
