ANT COMMUNITIES 



for the community that this circle of watchers con- 

 tinually surrounds the queen mother's person. Theirs 

 is a tribute to motherhood, not to queenhood. Cer- 

 tainly they have not reasoned it out, but instinctively 

 they know that the prosperity, the very life, of the 

 commonwealth depends upon the maintenance of that 

 fecundity whose cessation would be "race suicide." 

 Popular fancy has brought to the explanation of this 

 "royal body-guard'' the familiar lines: 



"There's such divinity doth hedge a king 



That treason can but peep to what it would." 



It will be seen, however, that this "hedge" about our 

 ant queen amounts simply to a case of communal 

 vigilance, represented by watchers set by the self-govern- 

 ing majesty of the commune to save all the ant eggs 

 possible. Doubtless there is "divinity" in it, as there is 

 in all honest discharge of duty and outworking of 

 nature's laws. But anything like regard to sovereign 

 state, or purpose to give or maintain royal honors, is 

 wholly foreign from the situation. Reverence for 

 motherhood is there, however wholesome and protected 

 motherhood, the essential fountain of communal virtue, 

 vigor, and perpetuity. Are we losing from our own race 

 the due reverence of that "divinity doth hedge about' 1 

 maternity? Woe to the nations or peoples, be they ants 

 or men, in such estate! 



The body-guard of an ant queen is an elastic ring that 

 expands and contracts with her movements. If she 

 move around the room they move with her. If she seek 

 an adjoining apartment, the ring precedes, accompanies, 

 pursues, but never breaks up. Sometimes the guard 

 conceives that her maternal majesty needs special guid- 



162 



