20 
It is apparent, however, from what has been said regarding the 
termites of Liberia that Professor Weismann has greatly underesti- 
mated the difficulties which his theory of heredity would encounter 
in that group. As the various castes are not separated on sexual 
lines, there are five forms of each sex, or possibly six if complemental 
or substitution royalties are developed. Instead, therefore, of three 
or four kinds of determinants there would need to be ten or twelve 
kinds, and since it would be necessary to provide in the same way for 
the preliminary stages of the various castes more than a score of 
different determinants would need to be predicated—too many, it 
would seem, to leave us much confidence in this method of accounting 
for the existence of the worker caste. 
THE ANT SOCIETY. 
Interbreeding maintained by a simultaneous annual concourse or mating flight 
of all the recently matured insects of both sexes. 
Colony founded by a solitary fecundated female. 
Wings present on young females, but bitten off after the mating flight. 
Workers always wingless, often to be numbered by thousands, commonly of 
diverse form or of two or more distinct castes. Workers of different col- 
onies of the same species actively hostile. 
Numerous deviations from this type of organization are to be ex- 
pected among the various families of the tropical ants, the habits of 
which are still very imperfectly known. The colonies of many ants, 
too, are compound, a part of the young females remaining in the 
parental nest. Miss Fielde describes such a colony of Stenamma 
The germ plasm must contain double determinants for certain parts of the body 
of the queen and workers, respectively. But as we have already assumed the 
existence of double determinants for the formation of male and female bees, 
or at any rate for the development of those parts which differ in the two sexes, 
we can only make the further assumption that the ‘female’ halves of the 
double determinants may themselves consist of two halves, corresponding to 
the queen and worker, respectively, and that each of these halves must naturally 
be looked upon as a complete determinant as regards size and structure. * * * 
In the case of bees the factor that determines which of the two halves of the 
‘female’ determinant is to become active seems to be the quality of the food 
supplied to the larva, so that the critical moment only arrives long after the 
termination of embryogeny and before the chrysalis stage is reached. * * * 
We might, however, also assume the existence of three independent determinants 
side by side, so arranged that they become active under other definite influences, 
and this conception would better agree with the unavoidable assumption that 
the three determinants which act vicariously are of a similar size. eo FOE 
The termites, in addition to the workers or stunted females, possess * soldiers,” 
or males in which the sexual organs are stunted, which possess very strong 
mandibles and differ in other important structural details from the ordinary 
males. In this case. therefore, four determinants must be present, each capable 
of being substituted for another, and only one of which can be active ata time.”— 
Weismann, A., 1893, The Germ Plasm: A Theory of Heredity, 377-379. 
