52 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. fV'ol. XXIII, 



on longest the associated state prospered the most; until, at length, the 

 associated state became permanent. All of which social progress took 

 place while there existed only perfect males and females." Although 

 Spencer is particularly unfortunate in selecting a parasitic ant like the 

 amazon (Polyergus rufescens) on which to hang his hypothesis, there are a 

 few facts which would seem to make his view applicable to other social 

 Hymenoptera. Fabre ^ once found some hundreds of a species of solitary 

 wasp (Ammophila hirsuta) huddled together under a stone on the summit 

 of Mt. Ventoux in the Provence at an altitude of about 5,500 feet, and Forel ^ 

 found more than fifty deiilated females of Formica rufa under similar con- 

 ditions on the Simplon. I have myself seen collections of a large red and 

 yellow Ichneumo)i under stones on Pike's Peak at an altitude of more than 

 13,000 feet, and a mass of about seventy dealated females of Formica fusca 

 var. gnava Buckley apparently hibernating after the nuptial jflight under a 

 stone near Austin, Texas. I am convinced, however, that such congrega- 

 tions are either entirely fortuitous, especially where the insects of one species 

 are very abundant and there are few available stones, or, that they are, as 

 in the case of F. rufa and gnava, merely the result of highly developed social 

 proclivities and not a manifestation of such proclivities in process of develop- 

 ment. 



A very different view from that of Spencer is adopted by most authors. 

 They regard the insect society as having arisen, not from a chance concourse 

 of adult individuals but from a natural affiliation of mother and offspring. 

 This view which has been elaborated by Marshall ^ among others, presents 

 many advantages over that of Spencer, not the least of which is its agreement 

 with what actually occurs in the founding of the existing colonies of wasps, 

 bumble-bees and ants. These colonies pass through an ontogenetic stage 

 which has all the appearance of repeating the conditions under which 

 colonial life first made its appearance in the phylogenetic history of the 

 species — the solitary mother insect rearing and affiliating her offspring 

 under conditions which would seem to arise naturally from the breeding 

 habits of the nonsocial Hymenoptera. The exceptional methods of colony 

 formation seen in the swarming of the honey bee and in the temporary and 

 permanent parasitism of certain ants, are too obviously secondary and 

 comparatively recent developments to require extensive comment. The 

 bond which held mother and daughters together as a community was from 

 the first no other than that which binds human societies together — the bond 



> Souvenirs Entomologiques. I, 3 ed., 1894, pp. 187, 188, 196 et seq. 



2 Fourmis de la Suisse, p. 257. 



3 Lebeii and Trieben der Ameisen. Leipzig, 1889, pp. 3-6. 



