1874.] Tropical Zoology. 327 
then others of the Hymenoptera. Between ants and the 
lower forms of insects there is a greater difference in 
reasoning powers than there is between man and the lowest 
mammalian. A recent writer (Houzeau) has augured that 
of all animals ants approach nearest to man in their social 
condition. Perhaps if we could learn their wonderful lan- 
guage we should find that even in their mental condition 
they also rank next to humanity.” 
As regards their social condition ants differ from us in 
having successfully established communism. At the present 
day all the social Hymenoptera must be viewed with intense 
interest on account of their working-order or neuters. These, 
as 1s well known, are females whose normal development 
has been checked. Are we to assume that ‘‘once upon a 
time”? a woman’s rights movement sprung up in bee-hives 
and ant-hills, which ended in reducing the males to a very un- 
important position, and in limiting the number of the fully 
developed females? Are we to expect that the “‘ strong 
minded” ladies who are now arising among us are the 
forerunners of a ‘“‘neuter”’ order, and the heralds of a corres- 
ponding change in human society ? 
‘“The Hymenoptera standing at the head of the Articulata,” 
resumes our author, ‘‘ and the Mammalia at the head of the 
Vertebrata, it is curious to mark how in Zoological history 
the appearance and development of these two orders (cul- 
minating, the one in the ants, and the other in the primates) 
run parallel. The Hymenoptera and the Mammalia both 
make their first appearance early in the secondary period, 
and it is not until the commencement of the tertiary epoch 
that ants and monkeys appear upon the scene.” 
Just as in a chain of mountains the second highest peak 
is often far remote from the culminating point, so it is in 
the upheaval of the animal world to reason. The position 
of a being in the zoological series, or its proximity in 
structure to man, bears no relation to its degree of in- 
telligence. 
Warm as is Mr. Belt’s interest in ants in general, and 
the Eciton in particular, he does not overlook the fact that 
to man they are a great nuisance. Their habits of biting off 
the leaves of trees, and of fostering and defending such 
vermin as plant-lice, are, from our point of view, highly 
objectionable. It is, therefore, a fortunate circumstance 
that carbolic acid and corrosive sublimate afford us the 
means of putting a stop to their depredations. Mr. Belt’s 
experiments with reference to this subject are well worth 
the attention of tropical agriculturists. 
