34 
a condition of gregarious association of equal individuals. With 
the ancestors of the termites and ants this became gradually more 
centralized and specialized until a completely monarchical system was 
attained, which is still followed, at least in the early stages of new 
colonies. 
With the kelep, however, there is no indication of a social history 
of this kind. The primitive society of. equal individuals became 
specialized into two castes, the workers and the layers, so to speak, 
but there is nothing in the habits of the insect to indicate that there 
ever was a definite restriction to one fertile female for a colony. 
COMPLETE SOCIALIZATION OF THE KELEP. 
With the-ants the colonies are founded by solitary queens and held 
apart by definite instincts of hostility, but the keleps separate into 
small colonies merely for economic reasons, as it were, to find new 
feeding grounds. The colony itself is a different -social phenomenon 
in the two groups. Viewed from what might be called the geo- 
graphical standpoint a colony in a new place is a new colony, how- 
ever planted, but viewed from the standpoint of the insects and their 
social organization there is a fundamental distinction. A new colony 
of ants is really a new social group, a distinct family, but there are 
no such things, apparently, as new groups of keleps; there are only 
subdivisions of older groups. The female or queen ant leaves the 
old group and exists for a considerable period as a solitary inde- 
pendent insect, but there is no provision in nature for a solitary kelep. 
The kelep is completely socialized, if such an expression may be per- 
mitted, while the ant is not. Indeed, it may be claimed that the 
social organization of the kelep is more perfect than that of any 
insect whose life history has become known thus far. It is less 
specialized than that of the honeybee, perhaps, but is more complete, 
for even with the bees the young queens are obliged to leave the hive 
for the nuptial flight. 
Complete socialization involves, apparently, the transfer of the , 
chief responsibility, the social center of gravity, as it were, from the 
queens to the workers. The colonies of the bumblebees, wasps, and 
termites are governed, or at least founded, by the queen or mother; 
they represent the social principle of matriarchy, while colonies of 
the bees, keleps, and probably the drivers also, are founded and man- 
aged by the workers. In the matriarchy of the bumblebees, according 
to Maeterlinck, the queen-mother has to protect her eggs to prevent 
their being destroyed by her older daughters, but in the ergatarchy 
of the honeybees the queen is restrained by the workers from destroy- 
ing her own fertile progeny and possible successors, against whom 
she entertains sentiments of deadly jealousy. It is not to be sup- 
posed, of course, that the queens of the ants and termites issue orders 
