THE ORGANISM AND ITS ENVIRONMENT 385 



Is accompanied by anatomical differences between different mem- 

 bers of the group, a society not only made up of individuals whose 

 functions are different but also whose bodies are also different. A 

 hive of honey bees consists of three structural types, workers, queen, 

 and drones. The workers are by far the most numerous and active. 

 Their mouth parts are specialized for collecting nectar and their 

 legs for collecting and transporting pollen and working in wax. 

 Workers are undeveloped females, essentially sexless. The queen Is 

 a fertile female, somewhat larger than the worker, but without the 

 pollen and wax-working devices. Her function Is entirely repro- 

 ductive. The drones are the largest and are the males. They do 

 nothing toward the maintenance of the life of the group, their 

 function being solely the fertilization of the queen. After the nup- 

 tial flight the drones are disposed of by the workers and the queen 

 remains quiet within the hive; she may continue to lay fertilized 

 eggs for many years. Queens and drones are unable to provide food 

 for themselves; they are examples of degenerative adaptive changes. 

 Complicated social lives of this sort and even more complex occur 

 among the termites, ants, and wasps. Ants In particular collect slaves 

 and guests of other species and in some cases are wholly dependent 

 upon their slaves for food. Many very excellent and authoritative 

 accounts of the social lives of bees, termites, wasps, and ants are 

 available; to them the reader may refer for most Interesting and 

 informative reading. 



Suggested Readings 



Elton, C: Animal Ecology. The Macmillan Company, 1927. 



AUee, W. C: Animal Aggregations. University of Chicago Press, 193 1. 



Loeb, J.: Forced Movements, Tropisms, and Animal Conduct. ]. B. 



Lippincott Company, 19 18. 

 Conklin, E. G,: Heredity and Environment. Princeton University Press, 



1927. 

 Comstock, J. H., and Comstock, A. B.: Manual for the Study of Insects. 



Comstock Publishing Company, 1912. 



