



INSECT SOCIETIES LAMEERE. 513 



dividuals which do not reproduce and which are sacrificed to the 

 complete life of the fertile individuals. This phenomenon of the 

 limitation of sexual reproduction, a corrective for excessive popula- 

 tion, common to perfect multicellular organisms and to the perfected 

 societies of insects, is characteristic of all stable biological associa- 

 tions, for we find it elsewhere in another form. The only mammals 

 which would have been able to originate permanent populations are 

 the ungulates and the primates, polygamous animals which give 

 birth to only one or two young after a long gestation. 



Let us add also that to the polymorphism of the somatic cells of 

 the multicellular beings corresponds a polymorphism of the neuters 

 among the social insects, since, at least among the termites and the 

 ants, there are the soldiers, and since the workers of the ants can 

 themselves be differentiated. 



The astonishing resemblance which exists between multicellular 

 organisms and societies of termites and hymenoptera causes us to 

 believe that we can reason by analogy in solving the still unsettled 

 problems which bear on both. 



II. 



Granting this, regarding the problem of the historic origin of 

 insect societies, it will be necessary from the beginning to choose 

 between two opinions. 



Herbert Spencer, with whom some biologists are agreed, thought 

 that the societies of insects were due to a gathering of a number of 

 individuals building the same nest in common; there resulted from 

 this an advantage in the struggle for existence, a division of the 

 subsequent work having produced the neuters. The association then 

 came together before becoming a composite family, and consequently 

 in the beginning resembled a myxomycete. 



The majority of naturalists are, on the contrary, of an entirely 

 different opinion. They think that the historic determination of 

 the phenomenon was just the same as its present determination. 

 The association was at the outset a family proceeding from a single 

 founder, a couple among the termites, a fertilized female among 

 the hymenoptera. The association was in this respect comparable 

 to a multicellular animal. 



The first interpretation has in its favor only very feeble argu- 

 ments. It encounters, moreover, insurmountable difficulties, of 

 which the principal one is the necessity of admitting that the ini- 

 tial manner of constitution of these associations has been com- 

 pletely modified in the course of time. As a matter of fact, all 

 observations agree in showing us that it is always a couple who 

 found a society of termites, that it is always a fertilized female 

 42803°— 22 33 



