of
instinctive impulses--mere blind followings-out of inherited
impressions!

Instinct is the bugbear of psychology and does more to retard
investigation than any other factor. As long as people of the creationist
stamp wield the instinct-club, just so long will they be unable to grasp
the idea of intelligent ratiocination in the lower animals. A company of
men rebuilding a wall which has been overthrown by a tempest are said to
be governed and directed by reason, while a company of ants doing
precisely the same thing, and with just as much intelligence, are said to
be directed by instinct![83]

[83] It is often the case that animals find themselves amid
surroundings in which they are required to evince original ideation
and fail so to do. But, is man any different? How often do we find
ourselves checkmated and puzzled by trivial circumstances, which, on
being explained, are seen to be exceedingly simple!--W.

In the neighborhood of Hell's-Half-Acre, a desolate and rocky valley a
short distance from Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1887, I discovered several
communities of harvester ants, and closely and carefully observed their
habits. The first time I noticed them was early in the spring, when they
seemed to be engaged in planting their grain. They were bringing out the
little grass-seeds by the hundreds and thousands, and carrying them some
distance from the nest, where they were dropped on the turf. It is
possible that these ants were only getting rid of spoiled grain, but I
think not, for several of the seeds secured and planted by me germinated.
I observed them again in about a month, and the grass was growing finely
on the plat where they had deposited the seeds. Not a single stalk of any
other kind of grass and not a single weed were to be seen in this model
grain-field. The ants had evidently removed every plant that might
interfere with the growth of their grain.

I saw them again in August when they were reaping the crop and storing
the grain away in their nests. The ants would climb the grass-stems
until they came to the seeds; these they would then seize in their
mandibles, outer sheath and all, and, by vigorously twisting them from
side to side, would separate them from the stalk; they would then crawl
down and carry them into the nest. I did not notice here the roads and
pathways so generally found leading to the nests of the Texas variety of
the harvester. Around the nests the surface of the grou