in describing their differentiation and division of labor. 

 Some colonies of bees comprise queens and drones and 

 only one kind of sterile workers, though when newly hatched 

 these last serve as guards and nurses, taking the field as 

 foragers for pollen and honey only later in life. In various 

 ant-colonies we will find workers who serve as herdsmen, 

 devoting their time to the care of the ant-cattle or aphids ; 

 again there are masons, and gardeners, and carpenters, and 

 soldiers of various ranks, while in the honey-ant some indi- 

 viduals may serve as living receptacles for the tribal stores 

 of food. Each kind undertakes one of the tasks that are 

 vital for the life of the community as a whole. Instinctive 

 and unreasoned their activities may be, and undoubtedly 

 are, but the economic and social relations of the component 

 members of the colony are strikingly analogous to certain 

 fundamental phenomena of human societies. But still 

 more wonderful are the cases that may be found among 

 hornets and wasps. A fertile female overwinters and 

 places her first-laid eggs in the chambers of a simple nest 

 that she constructs herself. When the young of the first 

 brood hatch, she provides them with food, enlarges the nest, 

 and continues the task of egg-laying, while her first off- 

 spring relieve her of her former duties as they become able. 

 They enlarge the nest, they care for their younger kin as 

 they hatch, they forage abroad for the food-supplies for 

 the colony. And so the community that begins life in the 

 early spring with a solitary animal advances during the 

 passing weeks to a degree of complexity that is truly 

 astounding. As an epitome of insect social evolution it 

 gives in a few weeks a review of the process that in other 

 forms of social insects with stable colonies, or in the anal- 

 ogous human history, has demanded centuries of time. 



As we review these different kinds of individuals the 

 one-celled animal, the many-celled creature and the com- 

 munity, we see that each one must obey certain rules of 



