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
As further evidence showing how much more ants depend upon scent than
upon sight in finding their way, the following experiment may be quoted.
In the accompanying woodcut (Fig. 2) the line marked 1, 2, 3 represents
the edge of a paper bridge leading to the nest; A the top of a pencil
which is standing perpendicularly upon a board, represented by the
general black surface; B the top of the same pencil when moved a
distance of a few inches from its first position A. On the top of this
pencil were placed some pupæ. Sir John Lubbock, after contriving this
arrangement, marked an ant and put it upon the pupæ on the top of the
pencil. After she had made two journeys carrying pupæ from the pencil to
the nest (the tracks she pursued being represented by the two thick
white lines), while she was in the nest he moved the pencil to its
position at B. The thin white line represents the course then pursued
by the ant in its endeavours to find the pencil, which was shifted only
a few inches from A to B. That is, 'the ants on their journey to the
shifted object travelled very often backwards and forwards and round the
spot where the coveted object first stood. Then they would retrace their
steps towards the nest, wander hither and thither from side to side
between the nest and the point A, and only after very repeated efforts
around the original site of the larvæ reach, as it were, accidentally
the object desired at B.' Therefore the ants were clearly not guided by
the _sight_ of the pencil.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
[Illustration: Fig. 3.]
[Illustration: Fig. 4.]
[Illustration: Fig. 5.]
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