ANIMAL COMMUNITIES AND SOCIAL LIFE 



163 



The bumble-bees and social wasps show an intermediate 

 condition between the simply gregarious or neighborly 



FIG. 98. Nest of Vespa, a social 

 wasp. From photograph. 



FIG. 



9. Nest of Vespa opened to show 

 combs within. 



mining-bees and the highly developed, permanent honey- 

 bee community. Naturalists believe that the highly or- 

 ganized communal life of the honey-bees and the ants is 

 a development from some simple condition like that of the 

 bumble-bees and social wasps, which in its turn has grown 

 out of a still simpler, mere gregarious assembly of the 

 individuals of one species. It is not difficult to see how 

 such a development could in the course of a long time take 

 place. 



87. Gregariousness and mutual aid. The simplest form 

 of social life is shown among those kinds of animals in 

 which many individuals of one species keep together, form- 

 ing a great band or herd. In this case there is not much 

 division of labor, and the safety of the individual is not 

 wholly bound up in the fate of the herd. Such animals are 



