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 larvæ in a horizontal glass cell at D. Into this cell were also placed a number of ants along with the larvæ. The drop from D to C was only 1/2 an inch; '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.' Sir John then reduced the interruption to 2/5 of an inch, so that the ants could even touch the glass cell with their antennæ; 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 arranged them as before, only horizontally instead of vertically. He also placed some fine earth under the glass cell containing the larvæ. The ants as before continued to go the long way round (16 feet), though the drop could not have hurt either themselves or the larvæ, and though even this drop might have been obviated by heaping up the fine earth into a little mound 1/8 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 'Brain as an Organ of Mind,' suggests that the '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' (pp. 241-2). But even this consideration does not extenuate the stupidity of the ants which failed to heap up the fine earth to reach the glass cell which they were able to touch with their antennæ. That the species of ants on which Sir John Lubbock experimented were not, however, quite destitute of intelligence is proved by the result of the following experiment:--