NA TURE 



\_Nov. 19, 1 1 



than fowls, but we note that she was a hoarding insect, gathering 

 with great care and industry in good times food for times of 

 scarcity ; that she supplied her young from her stores ; and that 

 they responded to her maternal cares with filial affection. 



We left her at a time when the struggle for existence was keen 

 and some of her offspring starved through no fault of her own. 

 She was exhausted with a constant search for food and the cares 

 of a numerous and starving family. 



This necessarily involved the fact that her reproductive system 

 was quite out of balance, she was incapable of producing as 

 many eggs as her progenitors, and many of those that she did 

 produce were imperfect. 



Of these imperfect eggs some addled and some hatched out 

 imperfect offspring. 



At this point we proceed to inquire into the nature of the 

 imperfections of the offspring. 



There would probably be quite a variety in these defects. 

 One might be wanting in legs, another deficient in wings, 

 another insane, another deaf, another possibly congenitally 

 blind, or perhaps wanting in that sense, whatever it is, by which 

 ants and bees intelligently converse with their fellows. 



All of these and many other congenital defects are possible 

 and even probable, because we see them in other and the least 

 changeable orders and species of creatures. 



But the greatest in number of all the very important defects 

 would be defects of the reproductive organs ; because they are 

 the organs in the mother which have been most affected by her 

 unfortunate environment. 



Under these circumstances, what must become of all the 

 imperfect offspring in a sharp straggle for existence ? 



Manifestly all wanting in legs, or wings, or eyes, or in any 

 organs necessary for quick and intelligent movements in attack- 

 ing or resisting enemies, or in collecting food, must die at an 

 early age, notwithstanding any possible care of fhe mother. 



Manifestly none of those defective in the reproductive organs 

 would so die, unle-s they were also defective in some other 

 particular, unless indeed the struggle became so keen that 

 perfect and imperfect went to the wall together. 



Manifestly also these insects thus congenitally imperfect in 

 the reproductive organs would have a great advantage over all 

 others in the struggle for existence, from the time at which the 

 reproductive period in those ethers commenced. 



If altogether incapable of reproduction, they would have 

 vitality enough for themselves and a surplus to expend. 



The energy inherited from the hardworking progenitors would 

 be too great for idleness. The surplus must be expended at the 

 dictates of love or hate. Hate, beyond that healthy indignation 

 at attack or imposition which is necessary to self-protection, is 

 unnatural to such beings.^ But they have one to love, and that 

 is the mother. The perfect offspring depart to reproduce their 

 kind, and the one, two, three, or the dozen of the imperfect 

 ones, stay behind with the mother bee, or if she dies they 

 transfer their afiection to some one of their perfect sisters. 



Now another hoard of honey must be gathered, and another 

 lot of eggs laid, hatched out and cared for. The female bee 

 works industriously and, true to her instinct, denies herself of 

 necessary food that she may lay by the more for her future 

 offspring. 



And now these creatures, happy in their deprivation, capable 

 of supplying their own wants with ease, insist on gathering food 

 for the mother-bee. She takes it with e.igerness, tastes .and 

 stores it away. And after the young are hatched out, the like 

 attempt to feed the mother-bee results in feeding them. Thus 

 this family have for a time a great advantage in the struggle for 

 existence and there is a perfectly adequate motive for the conduct 

 of the kind little creatures who minister to the wants of the 

 mother-bee. 



Still this happy family is not precisely the foundation of our 

 modern bee-hive ; it is really too affluent for complete success. 



The mother-bee, no longer overworked, recovers her health 

 and unfortunately lays perfect eggs ; with the help of the nurse- 

 maids she rears her young without overtaxing her powers. Her 

 family and any others like it have very decided advantages over 

 the old type, to which nevertheless they inevitably revert, to fall 

 into a state of starvation as before ; for, in this family, the 

 nursemaids have, and can have, no probable successors while 

 there is plenty to eat. 



If this happens to one family of bees, it will probably happen 

 Lubbock's instances of ants att.-icking strangers antl not rescuing friends 

 by no means demonstrates the opposite of this proposition. 



to many families. The temporary affluence of one family caused 

 by the presence of the helpers will itself increase the depth of 

 poverty in the neighbouring families, and this poverty will give 

 them helpers in undeveloped bees in the next generation, by 

 which in turn they will be raised to affluence. Thus there will 

 be alternating generations of bees — that is to say, generations 

 with helpers, followed by generations without them. 



Among those that go forth from the mother-nest to find mates 

 and rear families of their own are some that are congenitally 

 weak in the reproductive organs. The majority of these meet 

 with sound mates and the variation dies out. But some individ- 

 uals thus congenitally imperfect meet with like mates. The 

 congenital weakness of the reproductive organs is intensified in 

 the offspring. The majority are perhaps so imperfect as not to 

 be able to reproduce their kind. Any of these that reach 

 maturity will be glad helpers of the mother-bee. 



Their less imperfect brothers and sisters are defective in many 

 degrees. The offspring of one never reach maturity. Those of 

 another nearly all thrive and there are a dozen reproductive 

 females among them. 



In their migrations at swarming time these bees sometimes 

 become established near less affluent families, congenitally 

 perfect, and are sometimes crossed with them. 



Here we have the bees in a condition of the greatest 

 variability as to reproductive powers, but all of those that are 

 getting on well in the world have among their offspring some 

 that cannot reproduce, and helpers are consequently numerous. 



About this time the paupers are established as a distinct 

 variety. Sick and discouraged with the unsuccessful battle of 

 life, they are more or less tolerated in the affluent families of 

 their neighbours. But when they have recovered their bodily 

 strength, they have not also regained their mental balance. 

 They have become accustomed to a life of tolerated dependence ; 

 so they live in the nest and lay eggs to be reared by their in- 

 dustrious neighbours. Sometimes the imposition becomes tO(i 

 great for good nature to stand and there may be a terrible slaugh- 

 ter of the innocent paupers and their offspring. The ones how- 

 ever that most nearly resemble the useful members of the com- 

 munity escape destruction and thus are established the Cuckoo- 

 Bees, their simulation of virtue being ever the closer as indigna- 

 tion increases at their vice. 



The varietie-; become extremely numerous ; many of them 

 however becoming rapidly extinct. At first in all families 

 where there are helpers there are almost or perhaps quite as 

 many undeveloped males ; but this being for bees a hurtful 

 variation the tendency of natural selection is to their diminution. 

 On the whole those families are the most successful in which 

 there are the largest number of undeveloped females. 



All this time experience is being gathered in the mothers and 

 differentiated .and stored in their systems, to re-appear as instinct 

 and intelligence in the offspring. 



Sometimes the most affluent fainilies come to want, and 

 perfect females are dwarfed in their reproductive organs by 

 scarcity of food and are only capable of being helpers. 



From all this diversity there is at last a type evolved which is 

 on the whole the best for the majority of the bees. This type 

 is one involving a degree of imperfection in the reproductive 

 organs of all offspring unless highly stimulating food in large 

 quantity is supplied from a very early stage of growth. Thus 

 the normal product is simply a helper and the number of males 

 and females in proportion to the number of helpers and the 

 food supply is a matter entirely under the control, not of chann 

 nor of the mother, but of the commimity. This then, I thinl:. 

 is the foundation of the Hive-Bee family, the highest type > ■; 

 the flying Hymenoptera. 



As instinct enlarges and intelligence increases, the helpers 

 take more and more upon themselves the care of the household. 

 They become pre-eminently the workers, and their officious 

 interference is continually stopping the mother-bee's toil, and 

 stuffing her with the best food they can obtain. She gives 

 herself up more and more exclusively to the work of reproduc- 

 tion, and her powers increase till she becomes capable of chang- 

 ing food into eggs and individually starting a hundred thousand 

 existences in her single lifetime. 



Between this highest type of the bee and the lowest, we find 

 several hundred varieties all capable of explanation, either as 

 progressive or retrogressive developments from our primitive 

 bee. i\I,any of them are highly specialised in their social habits, 

 and it seems to me that all those that have two fully developed 

 sexes and one or more undeveloped sexes, must necessarily have 



