128 SUPPOSED RECOGNITION BY SCENT. 
Presently I took up the struggling heap. Two of the 
assailants kept their hold; one finally dropped, the 
other I could not tear loose, and so put the pair back 
upon the tree, leaving the doomed immersionist to her 
hard fate.’ 
After recording one or two other similar observa- 
tions, he adds:'—‘ The conclusion, therefore, seems 
warranted that the peculiar odour or condition by which 
the ants recognise each other was temporarily destroyed 
by the bath, and the individuals thus “ tainted ” were 
held to be intruders, alien and enemy. This con- 
clusion is certainly unfavourable to the theory that any 
thing like an intelligent social sentiment exists among 
the auts. The recognition of their fellows is reduced 
to a mere matter of physical sensation or “smell.”’ 
This conclusion does not, I confess, seem to me to be 
conclusively established. 
We can hardly suppose that each ant has a pecu- 
liar odour, and it seems almost equally difficult, con- 
sidering the immense number of ants’ nests, to suppose 
that each community has a separate and peculiar smell. 
Moreover, in a previous chapter I have recorded some 
experiments made with intoxicated ants. It will be 
remembered that my ants are allowed to range over a 
table surrounded by a moat of water. Now, as already 
mentioned, out of forty-one intoxicated friends, thirty- 
two were carried into the nest and nine were thrown 
into the water; while out of fifty-two intoxicated 
1 Mound-making Ants of the Alleghanies, p. 281. 
