ADAPTATION OF FORMS. 



125 



In these, the differing forms of the different orders of a 

 Formic community, we perceive an admirable fitness for the 

 respective parts assigned them. The workers, with bodies 

 narrow-jointed and pliant, strong limbs, large heads, and large 

 powerful jaws, are framed for all activities of labour and of 

 war. The lordly idlers, thicker bodied^ more delicately limbed, 

 smaller headed, destitute entirely of trenchant mandibles (the 

 universal tool and weapon of the warlike workers), and pos- 

 sessed of wings, which would serve only as encumbrances in 

 toils chiefly subterranean, thus bear externally their warrant 

 of exemption from taking part therein. Last, not least, the 

 queenly females, of matronly and portly bulk, and with pinions 

 of regal amplitude, white and glittering, are endowed, equally, 

 with " proper persons " proper to their places. 



; 1 Uiin f linns ifittibe of IrcrftL'e 



