INSTINCTS IN ANTS AND BEES 149 



vidual in any way. Indeed the insect can have no experi- 

 ence of the results produced, for the results of the instinct 

 frequently occur after the death of the individual which 

 has performed the instinctive action. The benefits are 

 confined entirely to the offspring ; the general result is to 

 ensure the preservation of the race, not in any way to 

 benefit the individual, and it is inconceivable that they can 

 have originated in individual acquirements. 



Perhaps the strongest argument that can be brought 

 against the inheritance of acquired characters is that of social 

 bees and ants. In bees and ants some of the eggs are destined 

 to produce males and some females. Among the larvae 

 hatching out from the eggs destined to produce females, 

 two or three in each colony are specially fed by the workers. 

 These individuals develop into functional females which 

 have been called " Queens," and which lay the eggs that 

 produce the future generation. The other eggs produce 

 larvae that are potentially females, but are not thus specially 

 fed, and become workers. The workers do not usually lay 

 eggs, and in them sex normally never becomes functional. 

 They have on this account been called neuters. In quite 

 exceptional cases, where the queen or queens have been 

 destroyed by some accident, a few workers may lay eggs 

 which produce only males. Such a nest always dies out 

 eventually, and this laying of eggs on the part of the workers 

 must be regarded as an abortive attempt to continue the 

 life of the colony. Now, all the complicated instincts 

 exhibited in the social life of bees and ants, which have, 

 by the perfect organisation resulting from them, excited the 

 admiration of naturalists for several generations, are possessed 

 in the great majority of social bees and ants only by these 

 neuter individuals. Neither the queens nor the males show 

 them, yet it is only the queens and the males that contri- 

 bute towards the production of the next generation. What- 

 ever inheritance of instinct there may be, must be through 

 the queens and the males ; that is, therefore, through those 

 individuals of the colony which do not exhibit these instincts 



