Naturalist Tells How They Set Free Their Fellows When He Imprisoned Them.
An eminent naturalist, while watching a column of foraging ants, one day, placed a small stone on one of them to secure it. The next one that approached, on discovering the situation of its associate, ran back in an excited manner and communicated with the others, when all rushed to the rescue.
Some bit at the stone and tried to move it, others seized the prisoner by the legs and tugged with a force which threatened to separate them from its body; but they persevered until they got the captive free.
Interested by this evidence of intelligence, the naturalist next covered one of the ants with a piece of clay, leaving only the ends of its antennae projecting. It was soon discovered by its fellows, who set to work immediately and by biting off pieces of the clay soon liberated it.
On another occasion a very few ants were passing along at intervals. One of these was confined under a piece of clay a little distance from the trail, with its head projecting. Several ants went by without seeing it, but at last it was discovered by a sharp-eyed friend that at once undertook to pull it out. Failing in this it immediately hurried off for assistance, and soon returned with a dozen or more companions, all evidently fully informed of the circumstances of the case, for they made directly for their imprisoned comrade, and shortly set hime free.
Can such actions be regarded as instinctive? They seem rather to be the result of sympathy, the ants rendering to their fellows such assistance as man is in the habit of rendering to his kind.
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