THE SOCIAL INSECTS 



of preventing reproduction. Social insects do, however, also 

 practise infanticide, the eating of eggs and larvae. The honey 

 bee is peculiar in also destroying adult males in the prime of 

 life as soon as they become superfluous. 



While the less advanced insect societies break up as soon 

 as the next generation of sexual forms has been produced, 

 many species are able to emit huge swarms of males and 

 females without disrupting the colony. Ultimately, this seems 

 to depend on evolving a sufficiently long-lived queen or 

 royal couple around whom the workers are organised. The 

 break-up of the colony is probably more associated with a 

 decline in the oviposition rate than with the actual appearance 

 of the reproductives. In the termites and the honey bee the 

 production of substitute sexual forms gives the colony further 

 stability. Some ants may achieve the same end by receiving 

 back some of the young fertilised queens. 



It is the peculiar triumph of man to have established social 

 communities more elaborate than those of ants and termites 

 without sterilising the majority of the adults. Other social 

 mammals have a relatively simple community and only a 

 short breeding season. In some primitive human societies 

 infanticide, especially of females, has been practised. In all 

 our societies a great variety of taboos and customs tends to 

 discourage promiscuity and partially to reduce the birth- 

 rate. Until very recently a high infant mortality and periodic 

 famine were the final but wasteful agents by which the 

 population was kept in equilibrium with the food supply. 

 If the progress of medicine and agriculture save us from 

 these, we shall presumably have to rely on family limitation. 



It is no accident that the queens (or in termites, the royal 

 couple) of social insects live much longer than the females of 

 most solitary species. The full development of maternal care 

 demands a wide overlap between successive generations. For 



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