THE MYRMIDONS 165 



Her first children are but sketches of what her 

 race will be when she comes to be better fed and 

 cared for. Still, there are soon a few who can 

 work. They rear what grubs they can and some 

 of the eggs, now becoming numerous, they eat. 

 Another way of making both ends meet is to cast 

 grubs that they cannot feed on to the fungus heap, 

 where they contribute to the nourishment of that 

 succulent vegetable. Often, no doubt, the colony 

 perishes before it can get firmly on its legs, but 

 with ordinary luck the dog lives on its own tail 

 till it is fleet enough to catch a rabbit. 



A third means by which the young queen of 

 a slave-making species begins life opens to us a 

 view of the probable origin of the cuckoo or slave - 

 making habit. The female enters the deserted 

 nest of a colony of her own kind or of another 

 kind. She is thus at least as much better off than 

 a mere tramp as the man who has a house is better 

 off than a man who has none. There is the added 

 chance of something remaining in the larder, and 

 of there being even a few slaves knocking about. 



If a colony is found that has just lost its queen, 

 the way of the adventuress is quite smooth, and 

 this is probably the condition that led to the 

 founding of the very first slave-owning community. 

 Ants that have lost their queen will accept a 

 fresh one of even another species. Say that once 

 a young queen of our wood ant Formica rufa (to go 

 no further than our own land for an illustration) 

 wandered into a nest of F. fusca, where through 



