ECOLOGICAL 121 



a nest. Very striking is the way in which they bridge a gap by 

 forming, like gymnasts, a living chain, A being held in the jaws of B, 

 who in turn is gripped by C. Even quainter is the way in which the 

 two leaves, held close together by several members of the work- 

 party, are fixed by others by means of glutinous threads, these 

 being the sticky secretion of the larvae, held in the mouths of the 

 workers, and literally used as animated gum-bottles. There is no 

 doubt that sociality may greatly increase efficiency. The fact that 

 wolves hunt solitarily in summer, but in packs in winter, is probably 

 in part a reaction to the scarcity of food in the cold months, a scarcity 

 which makes combined tactics more effective. Of the same nature 

 is the co-operative fishing seen in pelicans; and the like may have 

 aided the more organised co-operation in the geotechnic labours of 

 beavers. 



(III) Of great advantage is the realisation of something in the 

 way of permanent products, such as a termitary, an ant-hill, a 

 beaver-dam, in which we see an adumbration of the external heri- 

 tage, or social environment, which has meant so much to mankind. 

 When there is an elaborate ant-hill or a beehive, the young animals 

 have a basis on which to work, an objective registration of racial 

 gains. Anything of this sort must serve as a liberating stimulus 

 to inborn instinctive promptings, and must also promote the 

 beginning of tradition. In the nests of wasps there is nothing that 

 lasts; the sole survivors of the autumnal debacle are the young 

 queens, who start a fresh nest the following summer. But it is differ- 

 ent in an ant-hill, which continues from year to year, becoming, like 

 a city, more and more elaborate. Something analogous to a tradition 

 will more readily arise when relays of different ages are living together 

 at the same time. It must be kept in mind that young animals may 

 well be in some measure educated by a socially constructed environ- 

 ment that lasts, as in the case of a beaver- village, or even in a rookery 

 that is re-established each successive year in the same group of 

 trees. Apart from constructed external products, such as a honey- 

 comb, there is also an educative potency in the framework of the 

 society itself. For a young worker hive-bee, emerging from a brood- 

 cell, finds itself in a busy organised world, in which the role it has 

 to play is predetermined in remarkable detail. 



(IV) A solitary insurgent animal, that has refused to enter any 

 of the open doors to easygoing life, such as those labelled parasitism, 

 commensalism, and symbiosis, must remain all-round in its develop- 

 ment and activities; and this independent all-roundness claims our 

 admiration. But a society, like a colony, makes division of labour 

 possible; and this makes for greater efficiency in achievement and 

 for greater economy of energy. Among leaf-cutting ants, so well 

 described by Beebe, there are the usual females, males, and workers. 

 But the workers may be divided into the productive and the militant 



