FEMALE GOVERNMENT 



has been strong as death, and has made them good and 

 careful nurses in an emergency, and for a limited period. 

 But that man is indeed a rarity who is a proficient in the 

 care of immature infants. Men may dandle young 

 babes with delight and even success for a while. But 

 the tact, patience, enduring fondness, and instinctive 

 knowledge of the real natural nurse of infants are en- 

 dowments of the female temperament alone. 



It is certainly so among ants. The males are simply 

 nonentities in the care of the commune's dependents. 

 They are themselves dependents of the most absolute 

 sort. Nature has denied them the gifts requisite for 

 effective service. To one who knows them well, and 

 their temperament and ways, it would never occur to 

 think of them as caretakers for the nurslings of the 

 commune. And this judgment is not affected by the 

 occasional and very rare instances in which male ants 

 have been seen to make some slight and awkward ap- 

 proaches toward a seeming part in the ordinary worker's 

 duty. 



For the most part, nurse ants take up and go through 

 their duties in a business-like spirit and way. It is done 

 thoroughly, and does not cease until the larvae have 

 spun up around them their silken pupa-cases. Nor 

 then; for these cocoons are constantly watched, cleansed 

 and cared for, and when the time comes for the young 

 imago to escape, it is aided by the scissors-like jaws of the 

 nurses, whose obstetrical services are aided by the efforts 

 of the outcoming nymph. 



Did Lycurgus get from the ants among his Spartan 

 hills a first suggestion of his theory that children are a 

 communal possession, to be reared at the charge and 

 with the oversight of the State from the earliest age 



" 167 



