520 PSYCHOLOGICAL PHYSIOLOGY. 



structure of their dwellings a tolerable transition to the elaborate 

 dwellings of the social bees and wasps. 



295. 



This indication shows that the nests of the wasps and bees which 

 live in society are nothing more than dwelling-places for their progeny. 

 This is their first and chief purpose, and all others which they at the 

 same time execute proceed necessarily from this. If we examine this 

 more closely, we shall find that among the wasps and the humble bees it 

 is always the female which lays the foundation of such a dwelling. 

 The impregnated wasp seeks a place where she can deposit her eggs, 

 when she finds it she constructs a cell, and deposits an egg in it. Instead 

 now of seeking another spot, like the solitary wasps, she remains 

 where she commenced, and adds another cell to the first ; thus the first 

 layer is formed. In the interim the first eggs have become larvae ; these 

 larvae are now carefully fed by the mother until the time of their change 

 into pupa?, when each closes its cell, becomes a pupa, and speedily appears 

 as a perfect insect, which immediately participates in the labour, both 

 in the structure of the nest and in feeding of the larvae, and upon the 

 increase of the number of those to be fed, by reason of the increasing 

 fertility of the first female, the number of the nurses and labourers also 

 increases, until at last from small beginnings a numerous society is 

 formed. That the first born young wasps may immediately participate 

 in feeding the younger larvae, they are, as it were, placed in a maternal 

 situation, and it is therefore that they are made barren by being prema- 

 turely ripe, and the one female function, that of conception and produc- 

 tion, they sacrifice for the other, the feeding and nursing of the young, 

 and it is hence that they are abortive females. Experience has proved 

 that this abortion is produced by the defective feeding of a truly female 

 larva. 



If, now, we more closely inspect the several social communities of 

 insects, the object of all of which is the nourishment of the young, 

 the most imperfect of all presents itself in the society of ants. It 

 consists of winged males and females, and apterous abortive females, 

 called neuters, or workers, which are besides distinguished from the 

 rest, especially from the females, by their smaller size. The dwell- 

 ings in which we find these three members of a society of ants are 

 found in the earth, and consist of passages which lead to larger vacant 

 spaces, all of which again stand in connexion, and which generally have 



