128 THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE CHAP. 



at the narrow end an egg which occupies a special hatch- 

 ing chamber and has beside it a special first meal for 

 the emerging grub ! The Spanish Copris and some 

 related dung-beetles are among the very few non-social 

 insects with complete metamorphosis in which the 

 mother survives to see the offspring attain the fully 

 formed stage. The ordinary occurrence among the 

 higher orders of insects is that the mother does not sur- 

 vive to see her young in the perfect state. In many 

 cases she never sees her young at all, for she is dead be- 

 fore the eggs are hatched. 



There is an evolutionist gratification in studying the 

 storing activities of bees, for they are exhibited in such 

 varied degrees of elaboration by different types. Among 

 the solitary bees the mother makes a store for the brood 

 which she very rarely survives to see ; among humble- 

 bees the store is begun by the mother but continued by 

 her worker-children, and there are species (beyond 

 British bounds) in which at least a part of the society 

 survives the winter; in tropical species of the bees 

 generically called Melipona and Trigona there are per- 

 manent societies but with imperfect combs ; in the hive- 

 bees we have to do with permanent societies and with 

 perfect combs. The elaborate storing, carried to ab- 

 normal exuberance under man's domesticating tutelage, 

 is correlated with surviving the winter, i.e. with per- 

 manence, and with the survival of the mothers after the 

 adolescence of their offspring, i.e. with the possibility of 

 social tradition. 



As among bees, so among ants, we find all grades from 

 those that do not store at all to those that make a fine 

 art of it. According to recent studies of the common 

 Mediterranean ant, Aphcenogaster barbarus, the seeds 

 which are collected are kept for a time dry and are 

 eventually put out in the rain so that they begin to 

 germinate. This has the advantage of bursting the 

 hard seed-coats, and in some cases of starting processes 

 of fermentation. At a certain stage, however, the ants 

 kill the embryo-plant by biting off the radicle or other 

 parts, and the seeds are dried again in the sun. According 



