MARK TWAIN

ments, and got results similar to his. Then I tried some
experiments of my own. These latter proved that the ant
is peculiarly intelligent in the higher concerns of life. I
constructed four miniature houses of worship—a Moham-
medan mosque, a Hindu temple, a Jewish synagogue, and
a Christian cathedral, and placed them in a row. I then
marked 15 ants with red paint and turned them loose.
They made several trips to and fro, glancing in at the
several places of worship, but not entering. I turned loose
15 more, painted blue. They acted just as the red ones
had done. I now gilded 15 and turned them loose. No
change in result: the 45 traveled back and forth in an
eager hurry, persistently and continuously, visiting each
fane but never entering. This satisfied me that these ants
were without religious prejudices—just what I wished;
for under no other condition would my next and greater
experiment be valuable.

I now placed a small square of white paper within the
door of each fane; upon the mosque paper I put a pinch
of putty, upon the temple paper a dab of tar, upon the
synagogue paper a trifle of turpentine, and upon the ca-
thedral paper a small cube of sugar. First I liberated the
red ants. They examined and rejected the putty, the tar
and the turpentine, and then took to the sugar with zeal
and apparently sincere conviction. I next liberated the
blue ants, they did exactly as the red ones had done. The
gilded ants followed. The preceding results were precisely
repeated. This seemed to prove beyond question that ants
destitute of religious prejudices will always prefer Chris-
tianity to any of the other great creeds.

However, to make sure I removed the ants and put
putty in the cathedral and sugar in the mosque. I now
liberated the ants in a body and they rushed tumultuously
to the cathedral, I was very much touched and gratified
and went in the back room to write down the event; but
when I came back the ants had all apostatized and gone
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