ANTS— GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 
125 
their antennae ; but it did not occur to them to heap the earth 
up a little, though if they had moved only half a dozen particles 
of earth they would have secured for themselves direct access to 
the food. This, however, never occurred to them. At length 
they gave up all attempts to reach up to the glass, and went 
round by the paper bridge. I left the arrangement for several 
weeks, but they continued to go round by the long paper 
bridge. 
Another and somewhat similar experiment consisted 
in placing an upright stick A, supporting at an angle 
another stick B. which nearly but not quite touched 
the ground at c. At the end of the stick b there were 
placed some larvae in a horizontal glass cell at D. Into 
this cell were also placed a number of ants along with the 
larvae. The drop from D to c was only ^ an inch ; 6 still, 
though the ants reached over and showed a great anxiety 
to take this short cut home, they none of them faced the 
leap, but all went round by the sticks, a distance of nearly 
7 feet. 5 Sir John then reduced the interruption to J- of 
an inch, so that the ants could even touch the glass cell 
with their antennae ; yet all day long the ants continued 
to go the long way round rather than face the drop. Next, 
therefore, he took still longer sticks and tapes, and ar- 
ranged them as before, only horizontally instead of verti- 
cally. He also placed some fine earth under the glass 
cell containing the larvae. The ants as before continued 
to go the long way round (16 feet), though the drop 
could not have hurt either themselves or the larvae, and 
though even this drop might have been obviated by heap- 
ing up the fine earth into a little mound ^ of an inch high, 
so as to touch the glass cell. 
It is desirable, however, here to state that all species 
of ants do not show this aversion to allowing themselves 
to drop through short distances ; for Moggridge describes 
the harvesting ants of Europe as seeming rather to enjoy 
acrobatic performances of this kind ; and the same fact is 
recorded by Belt of the leaf-cutting ants of the Amazons. 
Dr. Bastian, in his work on 4 Brain as an Organ of Mind,* 
suggests that the 6 seeming lack of intelligence betrayed 
by our English ants, from their disinclination to take a 
small leap, may be due simply to their defective sight 5 
