Ants and Some Other Insects: An Inquiry Into the Psychic Powers of These AnimalsForel, Auguste
Science
Ants and Some Other Insects: An Inquiry Into the Psychic Powers of These Animals
Forel, Auguste
Insects -- Biology; Psychology, Comparative
Many insects (perhaps all, in a more rudimental condition) possess
memory, i. e., they are able to store up sense-impressions in their
brains for subsequent use. Insects are not merely attracted directly
by sensory stimuli, as Bethe imagines. Huber, myself, Fabre, Lubbock,
Wasmann, Von Buttel-Reepen, have demonstrated this fact experimentally.
That bees, wasps, etc., can find their way in flight through the air,
notwithstanding wind and rain (and hence under circumstances precluding
the existence of any possible odoriferous trail), and even after the
antennæ have been cut off, to a concealed place where they have found
what they desired, though this place may be quite invisible from their
nest, and this even after the expiration of days and weeks, is a fact
of special importance as proof of the above assertion. It can be
shown that these insects recognise objects by means of their colors,
their forms, and especially by their position in space. Position they
perceive through the mutual relations and succession of the large
objects in space, as these are revealed to them in their rapid change
of place during flight in their compound eyes (shifting of retinal
images). Especially the experiments performed by Von Buttel-Reepen
and myself leave no doubt concerning this fact. Additional proof of a
different nature is furnished by Von Buttel, who found that ether or
chloroform narcosis deprives bees of all memory. By this means enemies
can be converted into friends. Under these circumstances, too, all
memory of locality is lost and must be reacquired by means of a new
flight of orientation. An animal, however, certainly cannot forget
without having remembered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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