164 THE RING OF NATURE 



queen humble-bee, she has all the drudgery of 

 making a nest and rearing the offspring of her 

 first eggs into helpers, so that she may devote the 

 rest of her life to the sole work of laying eggs. 



A little drudgery in early life is nothing for even 

 a princess of an industrious species like Lasius 

 niger. But it comes completely amiss to the 

 heiress of a race of slave-makers so used to being 

 waited on that they cannot even feed themselves, 

 but starve in the midst of plenty if their slaves 

 are taken away from them. The young queens of 

 some such species take with them from the parental 

 nest a few slaves to get the new house going till 

 there are warriors to go out and capture more 

 slaves. That is the most comfortable way, but 

 it has not occurred to all slave-making ants. 



Atta sexdens is an ant that not only keeps slaves, 

 but expects them to cultivate fungus for food. A 

 departing princess of that species takes with her 

 a little of the mycelium from the family tree, and 

 condescending to plant that, soon has something 

 to keep her going. The princess of a less provident 

 species lives for about a month by absorption of 

 the muscles that worked her now discarded wings, 

 that is, the material migrates within her body to 

 supply other cells, as does the material of a tad- 

 pole's tail or the food packed between the flakes 

 of a salmon's flesh. Not even a slave-making ant 

 has yet reached such a state of dependence that it 

 cannot do its own digesting. 



Let us follow a little the fortunes of Atta sexdens. 



