INADEQUACY OF NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. G57 



giving extra nutriment and the required extra space, a worker- 

 larva can be developed into a queen-larva. In respect to the 

 leading traits, therefore, the same interpretation holds. Doubt- 

 less there are subsidiary instincts which are apparently not thus 

 interpretable. But before it can be assumed that an interpreta- 

 tion of another kind is necessary, it must be shown that these 

 instincts cannot be traced back to those pre-social types and semi- 

 social types which must have preceded the social types we now 

 see. For unquestionably existing bees must have brought with 

 them from the pre-social state an extensive endowment of in- 

 stincts, and, acquiring other instincts during the unorganized 

 social state, must have brought these into the present organized 

 social state. It is clear, for instance, that the cell-building in- 

 stinct in all its elaboration was mainly developed in the pre-social 

 stage ; for the transition from species building solitary cells to 

 those building combs is traceable. We are similarly enabled to 

 account for swarmino^ as beinof an inheritance from remote ances- 

 tral types. For just in the same way that, with under-feeding of 

 larvae, there result individuals with imperfectly developed repro- 

 ductive systems, so there will result individuals with imperfect 

 sexual instincts ; and just as the imperfect reproductive system 

 partially operates upon occasion, so will the imperfect sexual in- 

 stinct. Whence it will result that on the event which causes a 

 queen to undertake a nuptial flight which is effectual, the workers 

 may take abortive nuptial flights : so causing a swarm. 



And here, before going further, let us note an instructive class 

 of facts related to the class of facts above set forth. Summing 

 up, in a chapter on " The Determination of Sex," an induction 

 from many cases, Professor Geddes and Mr. Thompson remark 

 that "such conditions as deficient or abnormal food," and others 

 causing " preponderance of waste over repair .... tend to 

 result in production of males ; " while " abundant and rich nutri- 

 tion " and other conditions which " favour constructive processes 

 . . . . result in the production of females." * Among such 

 evidences of this as immediately concern us, are these : — J. II. 

 Fab re found that in the nests of Osrnia tricornis, eggs at the 

 bottom, first laid, and accompanied by much food, produced 

 females, while those at the top, last laid, and accompanied by one- 

 half or one-third the quantity of food, produced males.f Ruber's 

 observations on egg-laying by the honey-bee, show that in the 

 normal course of things, the queen lays eggs of workers for eleven 

 months, and only then lays eggs of drones : that is, when de- 

 clining nutrition or exhaustion has set in. Further, we have the 

 above-named fact, shown by wasps and bees, that when workers 



* Evolution of Srx, p. 50. 



f Souvenirs Eniomohr'iqua^, S™® S6rie, p. 328. 



