ANTS 195 



and attends to the egg-laying process that takes place at 

 the annual rate of a million eggs for several years. The 

 workers attend to all of the remaining duties of the 

 colony, caring for the young, constructing comb, gather- 

 ing honey, evaporating it to the proper consistency, ven- 

 tilating the hive, warding off enemies, and otherwise 

 playing a part in one of the phases of animal activity 

 most absorbingly interesting from a human standpoint. 



Ants. — Among the ants the social organization reaches 

 the highest development in one respect, for there is not 

 only a division of labor among the individuals of the 

 colony but they are structurally fitted to perform certain 

 duties and only these. As in the bees, a queen heads the 

 colony, in which the members are winged males and fe- 

 males, destined to leave the nest and found new colonies, 

 and large and small sized workers and soldiers. The 

 workers construct the nest, collect the food, that varies 

 widely in character among the hundreds of species, while 

 the soldiers, as is to be expected, defend the home against 

 the attacks of invaders, chiefly insects. Each class or 

 caste is thus indispensible and cooperates with the others 

 to form a unit of a very high type. 



A Comparison, Ant and Man. — Among the species 

 of animals that form mutual benefit associations, the ants 

 are the only ones thus far mentioned whose special 

 duties are correlated with marked structural peculiari- 

 ties. Yet it would be hazardous to claim for this reason 

 that these insects represent a higher type of communal 

 life than the bees. Both appear to indulge in equally va- 

 ried activities, and it is certain that both lead eminently 

 successful lives. Whatever may be the verdict in this 

 case, it is evident that the social organization of man, 

 with its complex division of labor and cooperation, is 

 independent of any structural differences among its mem- 

 bers. The plumber and the blacksmith are physically 

 not different from the carpenter and bricklayer. Their 

 activities, like those of all the other classes of workers, 



