ANTS — GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 
137 
larger ant came forward and put an end to the difficulty. It 
rose to its full height on its hind legs, and struggled until at 
last it seized a rather projecting splinter of the wooden leg, and 
managed to take hold of it. As soon as this was done other 
ants ran on to it, strengthened the hold by clinging, and so made 
a little living bridge, over which the others could easily pass. 
The same author publishes the following very remark- 
able observation, quoted from a letter to him by Dr. Ellen- 
dorf : — 
It is a hard matter to protect any eatables from these 
creatures, let the custody be ever so close. The legs of cup- 
boards and tables in or on which eatables are kept are placed in 
vessels of water. I myself did this, but I none the less found 
thousands of ants in the cupboard next morning. It was a 
puzzle to me how they crossed the water, but the puzzle was 
soon solved ; for I found a straw in one of the saucers, which 
lay obliquely across the edge of the pan and touched the leg 
of the press : this they had used for a bridge. Hundreds were 
drowned in the water, apparently because disorder had reigned 
at first, those coming down with booty meeting those going up. 
But now there was perfect order ; the descending stream used 
one side of the straw, the ascending the other. I now pushed 
the straw about an inch away from the cupboard leg ; a terrible 
confusion arose. In a moment the leg immediately over the 
water was covered with hundreds of ants, feeling for the bridge 
in every direction with their antennae, running back again and 
coming in ever larger swarms, as though they had communicated 
to their comrades within the cupboard the fearful misfortune 
that had taken place. Meanwhile the new-comers continued 
to run along the straw, and not finding the leg of the cupboard 
the greatest perplexity arose. They hurried round the edge of 
the pan, and soon found out where the fault lay. With united 
forces they quickly pulled and pushed at the straw, until it 
again came into contact with the wood, and the communication 
was again restored. 
This observation is strikingly, though unconsciously, 
confirmed by a recent writer in the Leisure Hour (1880, 
pp. 718-19), who having been much troubled by small red 
ants in the tropics swarming over his provisions, placed 
the latter in a meat-safe detached from the wall and 
standing on four legs, each of which was placed in a little 
tin vessel containing water. Eight or ten days afterwards 
