Some interesting observations of Lord Avebury’s are sometimes quoted as evidence that ants are lacking in intelligence, but (if we accept the distinction already drawn[102]) they seem rather to show the lack of reason. “I placed food,” he says,[103] “in a porcelain cup, on a slip of glass surrounded by water, but accessible to the ants by a bridge, consisting of a strip of paper two-thirds of an inch long and one-third wide. Having then put an ant (_Formica nigra_) from one of my nests to this food, she began carrying it off, and by degrees a number of friends came to help her. When about twenty-five ants were so engaged, I moved the little paper bridge slightly, so as to leave a chasm just so wide that the ants could not reach across. They came to the edge and tried hard to get over, but it did not occur to them to push the paper bridge, though the distance was only about one-third of an inch, and they might easily have done so. After trying for about a quarter of an hour they gave up the attempt and returned home. This I repeated several times. Then, thinking that paper was a substance to which they were not accustomed, I tried the same with a bit of straw one inch long and one-eighth of an inch wide. The result was the same. Again, I placed particles of food close to and directly over the nest, but connected with it only by a passage several feet in length. Under these circumstances it would be obviously a saving of time and labour to drop the food on to the nest, or at any rate to spring down with it, so as to save one journey. But though I have frequently tried the experiment, my ants never adopted either of these courses. I arranged matters so that the glass on which the food was placed was only raised one-third of an inch above the nest. The ants tried to reach down, and the distance was so small that occasionally, if another ant passed underneath just as one was reaching down, the upper one could step on to its back, and so descend; but this only happened accidentally, and they did not think of throwing the particles down, nor, which surprised me very much, would they jump down themselves. I then placed a heap of mould close to the glass, but just so far that they could not reach across. It would have been quite easy for any ant, by moving a particle of earth for a quarter of an inch, to have made a bridge by which the food might have been reached, but this simple expedient did not occur to them.”