264 ANIMAL LIFE 



Although many other orders of insects lay their 

 eggs on food suitable for the young, it is only among 

 ants, bees, and wasps that nests are constructed and 

 stored with specially prepared food by mothers that 

 never see their young, or by workers that have no 

 children. In this, the highest group of insects, indi- 

 vidualism and collectivism are worked out in the most 

 bewildering variety of detail. In no other group of 

 animals is the community and communal action 

 more fully realised than by bees and ants. The very 

 existence of castes, . queens, workers, and drones is 

 controlled by the future of the race. Their numbers 

 and activity are decided by, and devoted to, the 

 welfare of the community. The construction of the 

 nest and cells or comb, the laying of eggs, and storage 

 of special food in the egg-cell, and in reservoirs against 

 bad weather, the heating of the nest, the provision of 

 suitable moisture and the succession of swarms all the 

 characteristic activities of these Hymenoptera have 

 no relation to the workers' individual needs but are 

 directed to the colonial interest. So dependent on 

 society do the members become that, in the case of 

 ants, no isolated worker can live more than a short 

 time, though normally a long-lived creature, and there 

 is not a single species of ant which is solitary. So 

 altruistic are some ants, so specialised for the further- 

 ance of interests not their own, that they may lose the 

 power of feeding and cleaning themselves, and depend 

 for these offices on the service of slaves, whilst their 

 own activity is devoted to the defence of the colony. 



