1882.J 
639 
Comparative Psychology, 
broad cloth soaked in tobacco-water. When the ants, re- 
turning home down the trunk of the tree, arrived at the 
soaked cloth, they turned round, went up the tree again to 
some of the overhanging branches, and allowed themselves 
to drop clear of the obnoxious barrier. On the other hand, 
the ants which desired to mount the tree first examined the 
nature of the barrier, then turned back and procured from 
a distance little pellets of earth, which they carried in their 
jaws and deposited one after another upon the tobacco-cloth 
till a road of earth was made across it, over which the ants 
passed to and fro with impunity.” 
A very similar observation was made more than a century 
ago by Cardinal Fleury, and published by Reaumur : — The 
Cardinal smeared the trunk of a tree with bird-lime, in order 
to prevent the ants from ascending it ; but the insedds over- 
came the obstacle by making a road of earth, small stones, 
&c., as in the case just mentioned. In another instance 
the Cardinal saw a number of ants make a bridge across a 
vessel of water surrounding the bottom of an orange-tree 
tub. They did so by conveying a number of little pieces of 
wood.” These instances, with others that might be either 
quoted from Mr. Romanes or adduced from other trustworthy 
sources, prove that ants have the power of invention. 
Over a great part of the work before us, as well as the re- 
flections which it cannot fail to suggest, we must pass 
rapidly. But we are bound to note certain observations 
showing how rapidly birds in a wild state learn from experi- 
ence. Mr. Holden found that when telegraph-wires were first 
set up along the road from Larne to Cushendall, on the coast 
of the county Antrim, numbers of starlings were found lying 
dead or wounded on the roadside, they having evidently 
in their flight in the dusky morn struck against the tele- 
graph-wires. Through the following and the succeeding 
winters hardly a death occurred among the starlings on 
their arrival. “ It would thus appear that the birds under- 
stood the cause of the fatal accidents among their fellow- 
travellers the previous year, and hence carefully avoided the 
telegraph-wires ; not only so, but the young birds must also 
have acquired this knowledge and perpetuated it.” 
Touching the readiness with which birds appreciate anew 
danger, real or apparent, we were once informed by an old 
gardener at Aylesbury that a scarecrow is rarely effective for 
more than three days. At the end of that time the birds 
have come to the conclusion that it is a mere brutum fulmen, 
and a fresh device is needful. 
According to Mr. Thomas Guring the geese kept on the 
