SOME REPRESENTATIVE INSECTS 



393 



« ' /- V- 



single fertile female or queen that lays eggs and is tended by the 

 workers, and with many drones, may be regarded as a further 

 specialization of such a state as that seen in the bumble-bee. The 

 speciaHzed structures and habits of the workers of a honey-bee 

 colony are remarkable, as are also the activities of the queen. Food 

 is collected and stored, the 3'oung are tended and fed, the integrity 

 of the colony with its single 

 queen is maintained by the 

 killing of supernumerary 

 queens or by the swarming 

 of many workers with the 

 old queen to found a new 

 colony, leaving part of the 

 old colony to rear a new 

 queen. The honej'^-bee has 

 been extensively studied 

 because of its importance 

 to man. Instead of under- 

 taking a specific account 

 of its habits and life cycle, 

 we have here presented the 

 stages through which such 

 bees have probably passed 

 in the evolution of their 

 colonial life. Among the 

 many fascinating problems 

 that are presented by the 

 honey-bees are the behavior 

 of the individuals, which is 

 a marvel of precision and seeming adaptation of means to ends, 

 but in reaUty consists of stereotyped processes based upon in- 

 herited reflexes that are modifiable only within the narrowest 

 limits; the problem of how the characteristics of workers can 

 have arisen and become inherited, since the workers leave no 

 descendants; and the problem of the evolutionary origin of such 

 a society through stages like those indicated. 



The ants (Figs. 207 and 208) are even more specialized in their 

 communal life, since there are no existing examples of solitary 

 ants, and since the workers of most ant colonies are specialized 

 into two or more " castes " adapted for special activities. Ant 



Fig. 206. 



A collector of honey in ancient 

 times. 



(From a pre-historic rock painting in Valencia, 

 Spain. After Obermaier, courtesy of the Hispanic 

 Society of America.) 



