OUR SIX-FOOTED RIVALS. 201 



If we compare the zoological rank of our "six-footed rivals" with 

 our own, we must, from one point of view, concede them a higher po- 

 sition. The more perfectly developed is any animal the more do we 

 find it possessed of an especial organ for the discharge of every func- 

 tion. In like manner it may be contended that, as a species rises in 

 the scale of being, duties once indiscriminately performed by all the 

 species are assigned to distinct individuals. Among the humbler 

 groups of the animal kingdom the whole reproductive task is per- 

 formed by all members of the species. In other words, hermaph- 

 roditism prevails. As we ascend to higher groups the sexes are 

 separated, and the species becomes dimorphous. This arrangement 

 prevails among all vertebrate animals, and among a large majority 

 of annulose species. We find here already, however, one of those 

 contrasts which so often prevail between these two great series of 

 beings. Among vertebrates, and especially in mankind, the function 

 of the female sex seems limited to the nurture intra- and extra- 

 uterine of the young. Were man immortal and non-reproductive, 

 woman's raison d'etre would disappear. Among Annulosa the very 

 reverse holds good ; the females are as a rule larger, stronger, and 

 more long-lived, while the task of the male seems limited to the 

 fecundation of the ova. This being once performed, his part is 

 played. Among butterflies, moths, and ants, his death speedily 

 follows, while among spiders he is generally killed and devoured by 

 his better-half. This predominance of the female sex seems to pre- 

 pare the way for the phenomenon which we recognize among the 

 social Hymenoptera. Here the species become no longer dimorphous, 

 but polymorphous. In other words, in addition to the males and 

 females, whose task is now exclusively confined to the mere function 

 of reproduction, there are, as we have seen, one or more forms of 

 females, sexually abortive, but so developed in other respects as to 

 form the castes of workers and fighters, upon whom the real govern- 

 ment of the ant-hill devolves, who provide for its enlargement, well- 

 being, and defense. 



It may, we think, be legitimately contended that the develop- 

 ment of a distinct working order is a step in advance similar to that 

 taken by the distribution of the sexual functions among two different 

 individuals that the polymorphic species is higher than the dimor- 

 phic, just as the dimorphic is higher than the monomorphic. 



Of the development of a neuter order among vertebrate animals, 

 and especially among mankind, we know nothing which can be fairly 

 called a trace. But, in comparing the two civilizations, that of man 

 and that of the ant, we must be struck with the fact that the former 

 has from time to time imitated this peculiar feature. The attempts, 

 however, whether made by the devotion of certain classes to celibacy 

 or by actual emasculation, have been as unsuccessful as the sham 

 elephants of Semiramis. Celibates retaining the sexual appetite, but 



