HONEY ANTS. 3 r 



is about the same as if the honey were stored in 

 cells of wax. The ants, in fact, utilise the only 

 good vessel or utensil they have at their disposal, 

 the flexible and extensible abdomen of their own 

 comrades. 



The greatest difficulty is to understand how the 

 workers first acquired the habit of feeding these lazy 

 members to such repletion; but as all ants "take 

 toll " of one another, this is much less of a crux than 

 it looks at first sight. A very greedy ant, which not 

 only ate much itself while out foraging, but also took 

 toll of all others in the nest, after it was too full to 

 move about readily, would be in a fair way to become 

 a rotund. And as it would thus be performing a use- 

 ful function for the rest, at the same that it was grati- 

 fying its own epicurean tastes, the habit would soon 

 become fixed and specialised, till at last we should get 

 just such a regular and settled form of honey-storing 

 as we see in this Colorado species. Indeed, another 

 totally distinct type of ant in Australia has arrived at 

 exactly the same device quite separately, as so often 

 happens in nature under similar circumstances. What- 

 ever benefits one creature under any given conditions 

 will also benefit others whose conditions are identical ; 

 and thus we often get adaptive resemblances between 

 plants and animals very widely removed from one 

 another in genealogical order. 



