LIFE-HISTORIES OF HYMENOPTERA 265 



The more these social creatures are studied the more 

 clearly does it appear that their behaviour is regulated 

 far more by future contingencies than by present needs, 

 and that they present in the organisation of their 

 communal life and in their adaptation of plants and 

 animals to their needs and those of their offspring, 

 a civilisation which though many ways similar to the 

 early stages of human civilisation, shows a still more 

 striking resemblance thereto in the plasticity whereby 

 advantageous seasonal or local peculiarities are made 

 use of and destructive agencies avoided or overcome. 

 If we meet with instances of stupidity and inflexibility, 

 these exceptions do but emphasise a frequent parallel 

 in human frailty. There is an American saying 

 that the ant is King of Brazil, and only want of sub- 

 limity of form prevents us from confessing the ant as 

 king of animals, for in it intelligence rules as well as 

 instinct, and has controlled a civilisation of caste that 

 is devoted beyond human parallel to the welfare of 

 the state. 



The common ants, bees, and wasps are, however, 

 only a fraction of the order Hymenoptera. In addition 

 to the more familiar social members of these groups 

 there are large numbers of solitary bees and wasps 

 whose care for their young is no less wonderful. Just 

 as we study the smaller races of mankind, or the in- 

 significant early traces of dominant nations, in order 

 to understand the complex forms of western or eastern 

 civilisation, so the dominant familiar insects only 

 become tolerably intelligible when the less highly 



