at intervals. I confined one of these under a piece of clay, at a
little distance from the line, with his head projecting. Several
ants passed it, but at last one discovered it and tried to pull it
out, but could not. It immediately set off at a great rate, and I
thought it had deserted its comrade, but it had only gone for
assistance, for in a short time about a dozen ants came hurrying
up, evidently fully informed of the circumstances of the case, for
they made directly for their imprisoned comrade, and soon set him
free. I do not see how this action could be instinctive. It was
sympathetic help, such as man only among the higher mammalia shows.
The excitement and ardour with which they carried on their
unflagging exertions for the rescue of their comrade could not have
been greater if they had been human beings, and this to meet a
danger that can be only of the rarest occurrence. Amongst the ants
of Central America I place the Eciton as the first in intelligence,
and as such at the head of the Articulata. Wasps and bees come next
to ants, and then others of the Hymenoptera. Between ants and the
lower forms of insects there is a greater difference in reasoning
powers than there is between man and the lowest mammalian. A recent
writer has argued that of all animals ants approach nearest to man
in their social condition.* (*Houzeau, "Etudes sur les Facultes
mentales des Animaux comparees a celles de l'Homme.") Perhaps if we
could learn their wonderful language we should find that even in
their mental condition they also rank next to humanity.

I shall relate two more instances of the use of a reasoning faculty
in these ants. I once saw a wide column trying to pass along a
crumbling, nearly perpendicular, slope. They would have got very
slowly over it, and many of them would have fallen, but a number
having secured their hold, and reaching to each other, remained