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Show MlTTlS Authority Again Asserts They Show More Than Instinct. Lord Avebury Sees No Reason to Change Views Expressed 30 Years Ago Believes They Possess High Power. London. "Do ants reason?" is an Interesting question, which has cropped up again. Hitherto we had such an eminent authority as Lord Avebury expressing his unquestionable unquestion-able belief that they do. This so far back as 30 years ago, and we let it remain at that. But now comes along Henry Hill, an equally well-informed authority on the insect world, who, during a lecture at the London insti- tution, would not allow ants any higher high-er quality than that of "instinct." In reply Lord Avebury sees no reason rea-son to charg': his view expressed 30 years Ego znA still believes these insects in-sects have the "gift of reason." "I have not studied ants for many years," said Lord Avebury, "but I hope to renew my experiments before long and I still adhere to the conclusions conclu-sions which you will find in my book on 'Ants, Bees and Wasps.' In that work I said, 'When we see an ant hill tenanted by thousands of industrious Inhabitants excavatingchambers, forming form-ing tunnels, making roads, guarding their homes, gathering food, feeding the young, tending their domestic animals, an-imals, each one fulfilling its duties industriously in-dustriously and without confusion, it is difficult altogther to deny to them the gift of reason and the preceding observations tend to conform the opinion opin-ion that their mental powers differ from those of men not so much in kind as in degree.' "My principal experiment was one In which I placed intoxicated ants near a nest, 38 being friends and 40 strangers strang-ers to the colony. Of the friends 27 were taken into the nest and carefully tended, seven were dropped into the moat surrounding It and four were left alone. Of the strangers 30 were dropped into the water, one was left alone and nine were taken Into the nest. Of the latter seven were again removed from the nest and carried t The water. Could anything more clearly clear-ly show the reasoning power of the 'e.nts ?" Lord Avebury gives instances without with-out number which seem to show that ants have a higher power than that of instinct. One of the most remarkable remark-able relates to their treatment of the eggs of the aphis, or "ant cow." They carefully tend these eggs during the winter, taking them to their nests for the purpose and then remove the young aphides when hatched in the spring, placing them in earthen "cow sheds," specially constructed on the young shoots of the daisy, the plant which provides the aphis with nourishment. nour-ishment. ' The herd of aphides thus reared is then regularly stroked, or "milked," for the honey they secrete. "This seems to me," said Lord Avebury Ave-bury in his historic work, "a most remarkable re-markable case of prudence. Our ants may not perhaps lay up food for the winter, but they do more, for they keep during six months the eggs which will enable them to procure food during the following summer, a oflse of prudence unexampled in the animal kingdom." |