AXT COMMUNITIES 



provided a store in the voluminous body, generously 

 nurtured during her virginity by the laborious and self- 

 denying workers of her home nest, who thus uncon- 

 sciously had wrought out a further part in preserving 

 their species. This stored-up substance, together with 

 the degenerating wing muscles, is transmuted into food, 

 which passes as a salivary secretion from the mother's 

 mouth to the mouths of her progeny. In many cases 

 this supply is supplemented by her own eggs, a con- 

 siderable percentage of which she eats. 



The first individuals matured are naturally scantily 

 nourished; and for this reason, perhaps, appear as 

 minims, or ants of the smallest caste. At all events, 

 the firstlings are minims, and their smaller demand for 

 food well accords with an empty larder. The known 

 ability of worker ants to endure a long fast is shared to 

 some extent by these callows. But as their philopro- 

 genitive instinct at once awakes, and prompts them to 

 feed and care for the larval dependents in the cell, 

 the supply of rations is a pressing problem. Before the 

 double demand of hunger and devotion to the commune, 

 their primitive cell walls melt away, and the young ants 

 break forth into a new world. What a great, strange 

 world it must seem, even to their imperfect perceptions! 

 Doubtless the first circles of adventure which these 

 pioneers permit themselves have a short radius. That 

 will be measured by their initial success in foraging; 

 and that, in turn, will depend upon the site whereon it 

 has been their hap to fall. In any case, their foraging 

 journeys will sweep over an enlarging space, as the 

 demands of their growing commune increase and their 

 experience expands. 



To a limited human vision the supply of available 



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