ANTS. 



external environment, but must also have an intense feeling of coopera- 

 tion, forbearance and affection towards the other members of its com- 

 munity. In other words, to live in societies, like those of man and 

 the social insects, implies a shifting of proclivities from the egocentric 

 to the sociocentric plane through a remarkable increase in the amplitude 

 and precision of the individual's responses to all the normal environ- 

 mental stimuli. 



Of the four groups of social insects above mentioned, adaptive 

 plasticity attains its richest and boldest expression in the ants. The 

 extraordinary character of these creatures will appear in its proper 

 light if we undertake to compare them on the one hand with the 

 remaining social insects, and on the other hand with man. the paragon 

 of social animals. It is certain that the ants occupy a unique position 

 among all insects on account of their dominance as a group, and this 

 dominance is shown first, in their high degree of variability as exhibited 

 in the great number of their species, subspecies and varieties ; second, 

 in their numerical ascendancy in individuals ; third, in their wide geo- 

 graphical distribution; fourth, in their remarkable longevity; fifth, in 

 their abandonment of certain over-specialized modes of life from which 

 the other social insects seem not to have been able to emancipate them- 

 selves, and sixth, in their manifold relationships with plants and other 

 animals man included. 



Ants are to be found everywhere, from the arctic regions to the 

 tropics, from timberline on the loftiest mountains to the shifting sands 

 of the dunes and seashores, and from the dampest forests to the driest 

 deserts. Not only do they outnumber in individuals all other terre>- 

 trial animals, but their colonies even in very circumscribed localities 

 often defy enumeration. Their colonies are, moreover, remarkably 

 stable, somtimes outlasting a generation of men. Such stability, is, of 

 course, due to the longevity of the individual ants, since worker ants 

 are known to live from four to seven and queens from thirteen to 

 fifteen years. In all these respects the other social insects are decidedly 

 inferior. Not only are the colonies of the wasps and bumblebees of 

 rather rare occurrence, but they are merely annual growths. The honey- 

 bees, too, are very short-lived, the workers living only a few weeks or 

 months, the queens but a few years. The termites, though perhaps 

 longer-lived than the bees and wasps, are practically confined to very 

 definite localities in the tropics. Only a few of the species have been 

 able to extend their range into temperate regions. 



Not only do the ants far outnumber in species all other social insects, 

 but they have either never acquired, or have completely abandoned, 

 certain habits which must seriously handicap the termites, social wasps 



