The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-08-01
Science Goes
to the Ant for
Knowledg
New study Of Insect Psy-
cllology by a Swiss
Naturalist.

times as high as the Washington
Monument.
Instead. however. Of containing
within itself the $ rotundas, the
noble halls. the great chambers Of an
actual public building, this imaginary
structure of ours shall have no room
larger than n In "a small dwelling. |
Its passages shall he mere narrow
aisles: it's doors mere posterns OPEN
ing anywhere; while no portion of
its ground plan shall have rule or
reason. IL shall. In brief. combine the
Roman catacombs and Mammoth Caye
with the Vatican, the Pyramids and
the Hampton Cour maze. Then i'm
agine any human being making his
way freely about this structure, in
pitch darkness. on n dead run.
That is what an ant has to do
she in an ant hill ten times larger
for her tiny length than the Louvre
or the Alhambra Is for a six foot
man.
Let us imagine ourselves. also, start
Ing out from this vast dwelling on our
daily forage for supplies. For a mile
or two we pass over a beaten road
worn 10y innumerable feet, six to each
lItNtilths hth VIC u Nv uh-
tanned forest. The green grass grows
eighty feet tall, while the withered
blades form a felted mat over which
Ne crawl fifty feet above the hidden
ground. Here and there a bush tow
ers a furlong in the air.
our journeys end is a fair sized
tree. Its trunk is a mile in circum-
ference, and the cracks in it's barb
-. -. 49,. ..l -.. -. % 49,
trunk We make our way, league after
league. aloft. until we chance upon
some small caterpillar or grub that is
worthy to he tugged home to be food
for the queens babies.
Then We make our way back again
ny a different route. We travel
through a trackless waste where there
is no outlook ahead. no hills or noun
tain range to keep us oriented. not
So much as a stream by which we
can guide our course. 1t is the Bad
Lands Of Dakota made still more de-
PRAYED.
Then, as we near our abode, We
find that somebody has run a lawn
mower over the landscape and COM
pletcly altered every rememberable de-
tail. Not many city dwellers, at
least under such conditions. would
ever get home at all: and one NAV
well suspect that even the late John
Muir would have had his hands fulI
But the little ant has to do this
cor, of thing. all in the DAYS work
She hunts the ground over. zigzags
back and forth. travels three sides OF
a square. Then she goes straight
home the nearest way. az II h were
euided by numbered blocks.
Moreover she begins this sort o,
exploration. inside the mes, and out
almost az soon AS she arst opens he,
ewes; while she has at best only four
or FIVE wears TO learn the district In
before she dies of old age. In add.
ton she recognizes as a .ong lost sis.
ter anywhere in the woods. any on,
Of the ten or twenty thousand in,
diyi5uals who inhabit the same hill
a even though ,wo or three species ar,
living together and she herself hal
heer avay for a vear. while che 6pht,
10 the death. on sight. every membe
Of any other colony. even though IL b,
nrec,seIv Tx. her own.
How the little creature nag al
this has long been one OF the grea
MYSTERIES OF the amman WOTlu. NOV
comes DIR Rudolf Brun ~ Zurich. tn
latest naturalist 10 have a try at tn
old nuzz,e and he seems 10 have xo
nearer the answer than anybody els
before him.
l., anncars IN begin with. that a
the sorts ~ ants are no more alike 1
, their mental opera,ions than are a
sorts ~ fo,r foo,aa Creatures II
known Cav examnle that our oil
enemy tho rat Ards his way throuR
our housas .,,,os, en,irslv ny mean
NJ bis .nuscIa ssps." Us will tbs
Is IN sav taLe tho ,u,ists and turn. {
hts boles ard massage, an the full m,
IN ahsoI,,o darLrass Inc, "a ouickl
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