ANTS AS DOMIX.1XT INSECTS. 7 



but not without the imitation and suggestion involved in an apprecia- 

 tion of the activities of its fellows. 



An ant society, therefore, may be regarded as little more than an 

 expanded family, the members of which cooperate for the purpose of 

 still further expanding the family and detaching portions of itself to 

 found other families of the same kind. There is thus a striking 

 analogy, which has not escaped the philosophical biologist, between the 

 ant colony and the cell colony which constitutes the body of a Metazoan 

 animal ; and many of the laws that control the cellular origin, develop- 

 ment, growth, reproduction and decay of the individual Metazoon, are 

 seen to hold good also of the ant society regarded as an individual of a 

 higher order. As in the case of the individual animal, no further pur- 

 pose of the colony can be detected than that of maintaining itself in 

 the face of a constantly changing environment till it is able to reproduce 

 other colonies of a like constitution. The queen mother of the ant 

 colony displays the generalized potentialities of all the individuals, just 

 as the Metazoan egg contains /;; poteiitia all the other cells of the body. 

 And, continuing the analogy, we may say that since the different castes 

 of the ant colony are morphologically specialized for the performance 

 of different functions, they are truly comparable with the differentiated 

 tissues of the Metazoan body. 



Two further matters call for consideration in connection with the 

 dominant role of ants, namely, their importance in the economy of 

 nature and their value as objects of biological study. The considera- 

 tion of their economic importance resolves itself into an appreciation of 

 their beneficial, noxious or indifferent qualities as competitors with man 

 in his struggles to control the forces of nature. As objects of biological 

 study their importance evidently depends on the extent to which a study 

 of their activities may assist us in analyzing and solving the ever-present 

 problems of life and mind. 



The activities of ants may interfere with those of man in three dif- 

 ferent directions first, through their feeding habits ; second, through 

 their habit of appropriating certain portions of the earth as nesting 

 sites, and third, through their aggressive, i. e., stinging and biting, 

 habits. The first of these activities is far and away the most impor- 

 tant. In respect to all of them, however, ants of different species have 

 very different economic importance, some being highly beneficial, others 

 as highly injurious to man, while a great number, owing to the small 

 size and scarcity of their colonies, may be regarded, from an economic 

 standpoint, as indifferent or negligible organisms. . On this account, 

 some myrmecologists regard ants in general as more noxious than 

 beneficial, whereas others maintain the opposite view. I believe that 



