[80 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I. 



female ant, would require, as Pierre Huber has shown, 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 recog- 

 nize their fellow-ants after months of absence. They build 

 great edifices, keep them clean, close the doors in the even- 

 ing, and post sentries. They make roads, and even tun- 

 nels 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 afterward build it up 

 again. 2 They go out to battle in regular bands, and free- 

 ly sacrifice their lives for the common weal. They emi- 

 grate in accordance with a preconcerted plan. They cap- 

 ture 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 

 others 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 become extinct. 



Prof. Owen, relying chiefly on the structure of thr- 

 brain, has divided the mammalian series into four sub 

 classes. One of these he devotes to man ; in another h( 

 places both the marsupials and the monotremata ; so that 

 he makes man as distinct from all other mammals as are 

 these two latter groups conjoined. This view has not 

 been accepted, as far as I am aware, by any naturalist 



2 See the very interesting article, " L'Instinct chez les Insects," bj 

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



