PHASES OF LI IT. 91 



certainly considerable differences between the different 

 species, and one may almost fancy that we can trace 

 stages corresponding to the principal steps in the 

 history of human development. 



I do not now refer to slave-making ants, which 

 represent an abnormal, or perhaps only a temporary 

 state of things, for slavery seems to tend in ants as in 

 men to the degradation of those by whom it is 

 adopted, and it is not impossible that the slave-making 

 :ies will eventually find themselves unable to com- 

 jte with those which are more self-dependent, and 

 we reached a higher phase of civilisation. But 

 witting these slave-making ants on one side, we find in 

 le different species of ants different conditions of life,, 

 iously answering to the earlier stages of human 

 egress. For instance, some species, such as Formica 

 live principally on the produce of the chase ; 

 >r though they feed partly on the honey-dew of 

 abides, they have not domesticated these insects. 

 iese ants probably retain the habits once common to 

 ants. They resemble the lower races of men, who 

 ibsist mainly by hunting. Like them they frequent 

 roods and wilds, live in comparatively small communi- 

 ties, and the instincts of collective action are but little 

 ieveloped among them. They hunt singly, and their 

 ittles are single combats, like those of the Homeric 

 icroes. Such species as Lasius flavus represent a 

 ictly higher type of social life ; they show more 

 till in architecture, may literally be said to have 



