Animal Intelligence. George John Romanes
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at least to the extent of giving them a sort of sepulture without feeding upon them. The latter, after having exhausted the juices of the body, they usually deposit together in some spot removed from the nest. I did not see any of the 'cemeteries' of the agricultural ant upon the field, nor, indeed, observe any of their behaviour towards the dead, but my artificial nests gave me some insight of this. In the first colony had been placed eight agriculturals of another nest, which were literally cut to pieces. Very soon after the ants were comfortably established in their new home, a number of them laid hold upon these disjecta membra, and began carrying them back and forth around the formicarium. The next day this continued, and several of their own number who had died were being treated in like manner. Back and forth, up and down, into every corner of the box the bearers wandered, the very embodiment of restlessness. For four days this conduct continued without any intermission. No sooner would a body or fragment thereof be dropped by one bearer than another would take it up and begin the restless circuit. The difficulty, I easily understood, was that there was no point to be found far enough removed from the living-rooms of the insects in which to inter these dead. Their desire to have their dead buried out of their sight was strong enough to keep them on this ceaseless round, apparently under the continuous influence of the hope that something might turn up to give them a more satisfactory burial-ground. It does not appear greatly to the credit of their wisdom that they were so long discovering that they were limited to a space beyond their power to enlarge. When, however, this fact was finally recognised they gave their habit its utmost bent, and began to deposit the carcasses in the extreme corner of the flat, as distant as possible from the galleries on the terrace above. Here a little hollow was made in the earth, quite up against the glass, wherein a number of bodies were laid. Portions of bodies were thrust into the chinks formed in the dry sod. This flat became the permanent charnel-house of the colony, and here, in corners, crevices, and holes, for the most part out of sight, but not always so, the dead were deposited. But the living never seemed quite reconciled to their presence. Occasionally, restless resurrectionists would disentomb the dead, shift them to another spot, or start them once more upon their unquiet wanderings. Even after the establishment of this cemetery, the creatures did not seem able to lay away their newly deceased comrades—for there were occasional deaths in the formicary—without first indulging in this funereal promenade.
In the formicaries established in glass jars, both of barbatus and crudelis, the same behaviour appeared. So great was the desire to get the dead outside the nest, that the bearers would climb up the smooth surface of the glass to the very top of the jar, laboriously carrying with them a dead ant. This was severe work, which was rarely undertaken except under the influence of this funereal enthusiasm. The jar was very smooth and quite high. Falls were frequent, but patiently the little 'undertaker' would follow the impulse of her instinct, and try and try again. Finally, as in the large box, the fact of a necessity seemed to dawn upon the ants, and a portion of the surface opposite from the entrance to the galleries, and close up against the glass, was used as burial-ground and sort of kitchen-midden, where all the refuse of the nest was deposited. Mrs. Treat has informed me that her artificial nests of crudelis behaved in precisely the same way.
An interesting fact in the funereal habits of Formica sanguinea was related to me by this lady. A visit was paid to a large colony of these slave-makers, which is established on the grounds adjoining her residence at Vineland, New Jersey. I noticed that a number of carcasses of one of the slave species, Formica fusca, were deposited together quite near the gates of the nest. These were probably chiefly the dry bodies of ants brought in from recent raids. It was noticed that the dead ants were all of one species, and thereupon Mrs. Treat informed me that the red slave-makers never deposited their dead with those of their black servitors, but always laid them by themselves, not in groups, but separately, and were careful to take them a considerable distance from the nest. One can hardly resist pointing here another likeness between the customs of these social hymenopters and those of human beings, certain of whom carry their distinctions of race, condition, or religious caste, even to the gates of the cemetery in which the poor body moulders into its mother dust!
It will be observed that none of these accounts furnish evidence of ants burying their dead, as Pliny asserts to have been the case with ants in the south of Europe. In the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society, however (1861), there is a very definite account of such a practice as obtaining among the ants of Sydney; and although it is from the pen of an observer not well known, the observation seems to have been one about which there could scarcely have been a mistake. The observer was Mrs. Hutton, and this is her account. Having killed a number of 'soldier ants,' and returning half an hour afterwards to the place where the dead bodies were lying, she says:
I saw a large number of ants surrounding the dead ones. I determined to watch their proceedings closely. I followed four or five that started off from the rest towards a hillock a short distance off, in which was an ants' nest. This they entered, and in about five minutes they reappeared, followed by others. All fell into rank, walking regularly and slowly two by two, until they arrived at the spot where lay the dead bodies of the soldier ante. In a few minutes two of the ants advanced and took up the dead body of one of their comrades; then two others, and so on, until all were ready to march. First walked two ants bearing a body, then two without a burden; then two others with another dead ant, and so on, until the line was extended to about forty pairs, and the procession now moved slowly onwards, followed by an irregular body of about two hundred ants. Occasionally the two laden ants stopped, and laying down the dead ant, it was taken up by the two walking unburdened behind them, and thus, by occasionally relieving each other, they arrived at a sandy spot near the sea. The body of ants now commenced digging with their jaws a number of holes in the ground, into each of which a dead ant was laid, where they now laboured on until they had filled up the ants' graves. This did not quite finish the remarkable circumstances attending this funeral of the ants. Some six or seven of the ants had attempted to run off without performing their share of the task of digging; these were caught and brought back, when they were at once attacked by the body of ants and killed upon the spot. A single grave was quickly dug, and they were all dropped into it.
The Rev. W. Farren White also, in his papers on ants published in the 'Leisure Hour' (1880), after alluding to the above case, corroborates it by some interesting observations of his own. He says:—
Several of the little sextons I observed with dead in their mandibles, and one in the act of burying a corpse. . . . . I should mention that the dead are not interred without considerable difficulty, in consequence of the sides of the trays being almost perpendicular. The work of the sextons continued until no dead bodies remained upon the surface of the nest, but all were interred in the extramural cemeteries. Afterwards I removed the trays, and turned the contents of the formicarium upside down, and then I placed six trays on the surface of the earth, two of which I filled with sugar for food. All six were used freely as cemeteries, being crowded with the corpses of the little people and their young, the larvæ which had perished in the disruption of their home.
I have noticed in one of my formicaria a subterranean cemetery, where I have seen some ants burying their dead by placing earth above them. One ant was evidently much affected, and tried to exhume the bodies, but the united exertions of the yellow sextons were more than sufficient to neutralise the effort of the disconsolate mourner. The cemetery was now converted into a large vault, the chamber where the dead were placed, together with the passage which led to it, being completely covered in.
Habits Peculiar to Certain Species.
Leaf-cutting Ants of the Amazon (Œcodoma cephalotes).—The mode of working practised by these ants is thus described by Mr. Bates:—
They mount a tree in multitudes. . . . . Each one places itself on the surface of a leaf, and cuts with its sharp scissor-like jaws a nearly semicircular incision on the upper side; it then takes the edge between its jaws, and by a sharp jerk detaches the piece. Sometimes they let the leaf drop to the ground, where a little heap accumulates, until carried off by another relay of workers; but generally each marches off with the piece it has operated on, and as all take the