ANT COMMUNITIES 



This inviolable law of the emmet republic needs to be 

 restated when we come now to consider what seems to 

 be an exception thereto. We have seen that the popu- 

 lation of ant communities is largely composed of the 

 larvae and pupre, the helpless younglings from whom the 

 future citizens must corne, and whose nurture is the 

 chief aim of the active commonwealth. 



These immature dependents are so numerous that one 

 would think that they alone might tax the resources of 

 any society. Nor is it simply a problem of crude labor, 

 quantitative energies, herein involved. As an outside 

 intelligence views the situation, there is a large field 

 for the exercise of qualitative energies, also, in the rearing 

 of these youngling ants. 



We have already seen how the squad of so-called 

 "courtiers," in a circle of ceaseless vigilance around 

 the fecund queen, manages to secure the eggs and trans- 

 fer them to the charge of the nursing detail. It is mani- 

 fest that the process by which these minute specks of 

 vitality, that carry within them the future of the com- 

 mune, are tended cleaned, fed, shielded from changes 

 of weather and all hostile influences must involve a 

 good deal of delicate and discriminating care. 



The eggs soon become Iarv83, small, soft, and ex- 

 tremely fragile objects, which need dainty handling to 

 nurse into vigorous life. They grow rapidly, and one 

 must suppose that the portioning of food to the chang- 

 ing grades of age and strength requires such qualities 

 as we are wont to ascribe to a considerate mind. Again, 

 as the larva? pass into the pupa stage they demand a 

 different character of treatment, which must call into 

 play faculties, or at least activities, that with men would 

 imply reflection and wise selection and decision. 



172 



