INSECTS. 239 



wonderful faculty, and better adapted in its limited aims than 

 reason, for those passengers over the scene of nature, whose short 

 period of existence, were they otherwise qualified, affords them 

 neither time to deliberate on means, or to profit by the lessons 

 of experience. 



The associations among insects for a common purpose are 

 temporary or continued. The temporary ones owe their ori- 

 gin to a female who has survived the winter, and who lays 

 the foundation of the colony, of all the members of which she 

 is the common mother. Such are the associations among wasps 

 and hornets. The female queen begins the edifice, and depo- 

 sits ova in the first formed cells, which are destined to pro- 

 duce assistants to people and complete the colony. The in- 

 sects first developed are all neuters or workers, a kind of in- 

 dividuals neither male nor female, only found among insects 

 which live in numbers together. To these neuters among in- 

 sects which live in continued societies all the labours of the 

 family are committed, the sexes only being evolved for the 

 purpose of reproduction. In certain communities of Termes 

 or white ants, the neuters form a body of soldiers ready to de- 

 fend the commonwealth from enemies, or to make regular war 

 on rival communities with all the precision and detail of military 

 operations. The existence of these neuters is a singular ano- 

 maly in the history of animals ; but the astonishing fecundity 

 of the females in insects which live in society renders a depar- 

 ture from the usual laws of nature indispensable. The female 

 bee, according to Reaumur, deposits 12,000 eggs in a period of 

 twenty days in spring ; and this excessive production of young 

 requires for their accommodation and food a third sex, with all 

 the maternal affections necessary for rearing the young, but 

 without the reproductive faculty. 



All the insects which live in society, with the exception of 

 the Termes or white ants, undergo a complete metamorphosis. 

 Among the Termes the young differ but little from the full 

 grown insect, except in point of size, the absence or shortness of 

 the wings, and other distinctions of slight importance ; but the 

 neuters, armed with strong mandibles, justly termed the soldiers 

 of the community, protect the entrance of their dwellings, while 

 the other portion of the population is employed in the peaceful 

 work within. Among the ants the neuters are deprived of wings, 



