ANT COMMUNITIES 



in the germ of being a tendency which, under favorable 

 conditions, might be transferred to the adult, he is met 

 by certain facts that may confound his reasoning. 



For example, the eggs of ants and bees are dropped 

 separately, yet they produce insects of the strongest 

 social habits. The moth of the tent caterpillar oviposits 

 in clusters, and her progeny keep together in the larval 

 state. The eggs of the garden orbweaver, like those of 

 most spiders, are laid in carefully sheltered masses, and 

 the young are partly reared together in the silken tent 

 which the mother overspins. Moreover, they start in- 

 dependent life in a self- woven silken compound. The 

 lycosid, a ground - spider, drags her round cocoon be- 

 hind her until the eggs are hatched, and then bears the 

 younglings about clustered upon her back. Yet soon 

 the centrifugal factor in vital force drives the young 

 of moth, orbweaver, and lycosid asunder, and thereafter 

 their life is solitary. 



With social insects the tendency is reversed. Be- 

 ginning life solitary, as in the case of the maternal 

 founder of an ant's nest, the individual becomes a family, 

 and the family a community, and this may develop into 

 a vast commonwealth containing many thousands or 

 even millions of individuals. When the circle of life is 

 complete, the vital centripetal force which binds these 

 communities together is relaxed, in a movement of im- 

 passioned communal fervor, to allow the outgoing of the 

 winged males and females, as with ants ; or the swarming 

 of a new community, as with bees. This is the " com- 

 mencement" time in the insect calendar, when a matured 

 sliver of the community is struck off and pushed into 

 independent life. 



Among ants these communities vary in population 



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