iv.] SOCIAL LIFE. 139 



partly on the honey-dew of Aphides, they have not 

 domesticated their insects. These ants probably retain 

 the habits once common to all ants. They resemble the 

 lower races of men, who subsist mainly by hunting. 

 Like them, they frequent woods and wilds, live in 

 comparatively small communities, and the instincts of 

 collective action are but little developed among them. 

 They hunt singly, and their battles are single combats, 

 like those of Homeric heroes. Such species as Lasius 

 flavus represent a distinctly higher type of social life ; 

 they show more skill in architecture, may literally be 

 said to have domesticated certain species of Aphides, and 

 may be compared to the pastoral stage of human pro- 

 gress to the races which live on the produce of their 

 flocks and herds. Their communities are more numerous, 

 they act much more in concert, their battles are not 

 mere single combats, but they know how to act in com- 

 bination. I am disposed to hazard the conjecture that 

 they will gradually exterminate the mere hunting species, 

 just as savages disappear before more advanced races. 

 Lastly, agricultural nations may be compared with 

 harvesting ants. 



Thus, there seem to be three principal types, offering a 

 curious analogy to the three great phases the hunting, 

 pastoral, and agricultural stages in the history of human 

 development. 



My experiments certainly seem to indicate the posses- 

 sion by ants of something approaching to language. It 

 is impossible to doubt that the friends were brought out 

 by the first ant, and as she returned empty-handed to the 

 nest, the others cannot have been induced to follow her 

 by merely observing her proceedings. In face of such 



