ANIMAL INGENUITY OF 

 TO-DAY 



CHAPTER I 



SOCIAL BEES AND WASPS 



AT the present time there are known to be rather more 

 than five hundred thousand different kinds of animals. 

 Of these, three hundred and fifty thousand are insects. 

 Small wonder, then, that this great class of the Animal 

 Kingdom provides some of the most remarkable examples 

 of animal ingenuity. A well-known writer has described 

 the present time as the Age of Man and Insects, just 

 as earlier times were known as the Age of Reptiles or the 

 Age of Fishes or of backboneless animals. Sad to relate, 

 this host of industrious creatures insects are rarely lazy 

 embraces but few kinds that are of immediate benefit 

 to man : the insect goats far outnumber the sheep. 



In comparatively recent times it has been discovered 

 that some of the most fell diseases of the human race are 

 carried from man to man, or from animals to man, by 

 insects. But four of the hundreds of thousands of different 

 kinds of insects have been domesticated. A domesticated 

 insect sounds rather an anomaly, but the activities of the 

 honey-bee, the silkworm, the cochineal insect and the 

 lesser known lac insect have actually been subjugated 

 to the will of man. 



For the moment we are only concerned with bees, not 

 only honey-bees, but also with certain of their wild rela- 

 tives. The honey-bee is of very special interest because 

 of its very highly developed social habits, which are only 

 approaclied by those of the ants and termites. True, 

 B 17 



