Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.Romanes, George John
Science
Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.
Romanes, George John
Animal behavior; Animal intelligence
The feeders at the beginning of the experiment were
those known to us as Nos. 5, 6, and 7. On the 22nd of
November a friend, registered as No. 8, came to the
honey, and again on the 11th December; but with these
two exceptions the whole of the supplies were carried
in by Nos. 5 and 6, with a little help from No. 7.
Thinking now it might be alleged that possibly these
were merely unusually active or greedy individuals, I
imprisoned No. 6 when she came out to feed on the 5th.
As will be seen from the table, no other ant had been
out to the honey for some days; and it could therefore
hardly be accidental that on that very evening another
ant (then registered as No. 9) came out for food. This
ant, as will be seen from the table, then took the
place of No. 6 (No. 5 being imprisoned). On the 11th
January No. 9 took in all the supplies, again with a
little help from No. 7. So matters continued until the
17th, when I imprisoned No. 9, and then again, _i.e._
on the 19th, another ant (No. 10) came out for the
food, aided, on and after the 22nd, by another (No.
11). This seems to me very curious. From the 1st
November to the 5th January, with two or three casual
exceptions, the whole of the supplies were carried in
by three ants, one of whom, however, did comparatively
little. The other two are imprisoned, and then, but
not till then, a fresh ant appears on the scene. She
carries in the food for a week, and then she being
imprisoned, two others undertake the task. On the
other hand, in nest 1, when the first foragers were
not imprisoned, they continued during the whole time
to carry in the necessary supplies.
The facts, therefore, certainly seem to indicate that certain ants are
told off as foragers, and that during winter, when but little food is
required, two or three such foragers are sufficient to provide it.
Although Sir John Lubbock's ants showed such meagre resources of
intelligent adjustment, other species of ants, which we have already had
occasion to consider, appear to be as remarkable in this respect as they
are in respect of their instinctive adjustments. Unfortunately
observations on this subject are very sparse, but such as they are they
hold out a strong inducement for any one who has the opportunity to
experiment with the view of testing the intelligence of those species in
connection with which the following observations have been made.
Réaumur states that ants will make no attempt to enter
an inhabited beehive to get at the contained honey,
knowing that the bees will slaughter them if they do
so. But if the hive is uninhabited, or the bees all
dead, the ants will swarm into the hive as long as any
honey is to be found there.
P. Huber records that a wall which had been partly erected by ants was
observed by him--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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