SIE JOHN LUBBOCK ON ANTS, BEES, AND WASPS. 127 



M. Graber's observation is, I doubt not. quite correct, but his 

 inference is not well founded, nor was bis experiment the same as 

 mine. It is quite true that if an ant be started off along a narrow 

 paper bridge, she will after aw bile turn round and come back 

 again. I do not, however, think that this is due, as he suggests, 

 to any sense of giddiness. Ants Avhich habitually climb trees 

 are not likely to be aftected 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 of 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 boaid 1 ft. 

 t-quare 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 ; 1 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 doMn where they left 

 the square and then took them near the nest, w hich they joyfully 

 entered. Two of ttiem, however, we watched for an hour. 

 They meandered about, and at the end of the time one was about 



2 leet from where she started, but scarcely any nearer home ; the 

 other about 6 feet away, 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 

 .^pot where caeli ant passed the boundary. They crossed it in all 



