NATURE'S CllAFTSMEN 



ant as a model of industry. But he who would find an 

 ideal commonwealth, wherein are no non-producing 

 classes and individuals, and where all work for the com- 

 munity, must go elsewhere than to an ant-hill. 



After the marriage flight, the males soon perish. 

 Most of them fall victims to birds and insects of various 

 sorts; but such as escape these enemies hide under 

 stones, or in hollows of the ground, or underneath shrub- 

 bery, and, being unable to provide for themselves, soon 

 die. Their mandibles, which are the implements of war 

 and industry among emmet tribes, are usually rounded, 

 feeble, and unsuited for active service. 



It seems a cruel transition, from being communal 

 favorites and objects of unceasing care, to a state of 

 exile and abandonment to death. It is another form of 

 that harsh dealing with the useless members of society 

 that one sees among their hymenopterous cousins, the 

 bees. But the active savagery of the beehive appears 

 in the formicary as neglect. The result in each case is 

 the same; and perhaps the short, sharp method of the 

 bees with their drones is the more merciful of the two. 

 Nature, as operative in these vital atoms, having se- 

 cured the perpetuation of the species, casts aside the 

 individual when the one function for which he was pro- 

 vided has been performed. It is another example of 

 Tennyson's large deduction: 



" So careful of the type she seems, 

 So careless of the single life." 



Every female and worker is furnished with two strong, 

 movable jaws, or mandibles, hollowed inside like the 

 palm of a hand and with toothed edges. With these 

 they gather food, defend themselves against foes, open 



6 



