Chap. VI. AFFINITIES AND GENEALOGY. 187 



powers of a female ant, would require, as Pierre Huber 

 has shewn, a large volume; I may, however, briefly 

 specify a few points. Ants communicate information 

 to each other, and several unite for the same work, 

 or games of play. They recognise their fellow-ants 

 after months of absence. They build great edifices, 

 keep them clean, close the doors in the evening, and 

 post sentries. They make roads, and even tunnels 

 under rivers. They collect food for the community, 

 and when an object, too large for entrance, is brought 

 to the nest, they enlarge the door, and afterwards 

 build it up again. 2 They go out to battle in regular 

 bands, and freely sacrifice their lives for the common 

 weal. They emigrate in accordance with a precon- 

 certed plan. They capture slaves. They keep Aphides 

 as milch-cows. They move the eggs of their aphides, 

 as well as their own eggs and cocoons, into warm parts 

 of the nest, in order that they may be quickly hatched ; 

 and endless similar facts could be given. On the 

 whole, the difference in mental power between an ant 

 and a coccus is immense ; yet no one has ever dreamed 

 of placing them in distinct classes, much less in distinct 

 kingdoms. No doubt this interval is bridged over by 

 the intermediate mental powers of many other insects ; 

 and this is not the case with man and the higher apes. 

 But we have every reason to believe that breaks in the 

 series are simply the result of many forms having be- 

 come extinct. 



Professor Owen, relying chiefly on the structure of 

 the brain, has divided the mammalian series into four 

 sub-classes. One of these he devotes to man ; in another 

 he places both the marsupials and the monotremata; 

 so that he makes man as distinct from all other mam- 



2 See the very interesting article, " L'lnstinct cliez les Insectes," by 

 M. George Pouchet, ' Revue des Deux Mondes,' Feb. 1870, p. 682. 



