SOCIAL INSECTS 37 



Sir Ray Lankester has suggested to me that 

 possibly a closer analogy could be drawn between 

 nations and communities of social insects than 

 between nations and species. Doubtless when we 

 reflect on the elaborate ordering of a community of 

 ants, of the care devoted to the young, of the capture 

 of other ants to serve as slaves, of the domesti- 

 cation of plant-lice and their use as milch-cows, of 

 the cultivation of fungi to be used as food, it is plain 

 that the animal kingdom presents nothing com- 

 parable until we reach the highest organizations of 

 civilized man. But they all differ in one notable 

 aspect from nations. The communities of ants and 

 bees, wasps and termites, are in reality families, in 

 most cases the progeny of a single pair. The colonies 

 of wasps and bees are annual, those of termites and 

 ants last a number of years. Among the termites 

 certain individuals, both male and female, are so 

 much modified that they cannot perform the duties 

 of normal individuals but act only as soldiers for 

 the defence of the community, or as workers. 

 Among wasps and bees there are no soldiers, but 

 the sexual development of a large number of the 

 females is arrested, and these become workers for 

 the whole community. The pointed instrument at 

 the tip of the abdomen, which was originally an 

 ovipositor, an apparatus used in placing the eggs in 

 suitable places, has been transformed into a painful 

 weapon of protection. In the case of ants, also, 

 there are females modified to serve as soldiers and 

 workers. 



Certainly these remarkable social insects defend 

 their homes at the cost of their lives, sally forth on 



