Nov. 19, 1885] 



NATURE 



67 



thiift, intelligence and filial love as the foundation without 

 which it is impossible that such creatures should of themselves 

 build up such a singular condition. 



It seems to me that hunger, something approaching starvation, 

 i> necessai'y as a beginning of the specialisation. Now we all 

 know that from their capacity to increase with enormous rapidity 

 some insects are subject to great vicissitudes in the matter of 

 food. The locusts, for instance, increase in numbers till, having 

 eaten everything in their native habitat, they leave it in dense 

 masses that obscure the heavens and which devastate vast 

 regions. Of the next brood, immensely more vast in numbers 

 than even these, comparatively a small remnant reach maturity, 

 and scarcely any reproduce their kind. The race grows u]i again 

 fi'om the few starved individuals too weak to leave the old 

 habitat and of wliich a few manage to survive long enough to 

 lay some eggs. Those doubtless produce many imperfect 

 insects, but these specialisations are not useful to the race in this 

 ca^e, and they cannot survive. I think it likely, however, that 

 man could specialise locusts and many other insects in this way 

 without diliicidty. I think it likely that he could with great 

 care so specialise fish and possibly fowls and with great patience 

 and much difficulty some of the mammals. I think also that if 

 mules were from a thrifty hoarding stock like squirrels they 

 would be in the habit of feeding the old mare as the workers 

 feed the mother-bee. But while it may he allowable to mention 

 these as interesting possibilities I do not propose to discuss them 

 in this paper. 



There is another element which is, I think, very important in 

 fixing the definite type of the workers, and which I had intended 

 to discuss. But while I think that element important in the bee 

 and perhaps absolutely necessary for the still higher specialisa- 

 tion of the ant, I think also that a permanent body of workers 

 is necessarily evolved from the conditions which I have assumed 

 as natur.al and proper to the primitive bee. 



To recapitulate in few words : 



I presuppose a primitive bee fertile and affectionate, hoarding 

 and intelligent. 



I show that great want will necessarily diminish the number of 

 her eggs. 



That it will render some eggs imperfect by deranging the 

 reproductive organs of the mother. 



that consequently some of the offspring will be defective in 

 the reproducing organs. 



That while other imperfect bees will generally die before 

 maturity, those imperfect only in the reproductive organs will 

 live if the perfect oft'spring live. 



That some of these being incapable of mating, will not go 

 away for that purpose, but will stay with the mother-bee. 



That, having surplus energy to expend, they will use it in 

 accordance with the instinct of the race in gathering and 

 storing food. 



That the surplus food will be utilised by the mother-bee, and 

 that therefore this family will be affluent. 



That, being affluent, the formerly overtaxed mother will recover 

 her health, and that her oftspring will thereafter be perfect. 



That consequently these nursemaid-bees will have no 

 successors, and the family will therefore be again reduced to 

 want. 



That some bees of the same hatch with the nursemaids will 

 be ongenitally imperfect, notwithstanding that they leave the 

 mother and find mates. 



Tliat the offspring of congenitally imperfect bees will be 

 extremely variable. 



That some of this oftspring will be unable to reproduce and 

 that they will remain with the mother-bee as nursemaids or 

 helpers. 



That these helpers from the congenital imperfections of their 

 mothers will have successors ; substantially as is seen among the 

 hive-bees and the humble-bees of the present day, and 



That the variation thus started will eventually be reduced to a 

 definitytypeorto definite types — by the survival of the fittest. 



That whatever other circumstances may aid in producing the 

 result in question, this is sufiicient of itself to account for the 

 specialisation of the bee and the ant into females, males and 

 workers. 



- SCIENCE IN FRENCH COCHIN CHINA 

 \\^^ h^ve already referred to an official publication of the 

 French Colonial Government in Saigon, entitled Excui- 

 sioits ct Recoiinaissauccs, which appears every two months, and is 



wholly devoted to recording the investigations made by French 

 officials in French Cochin China and the neighbouring semi- 

 independent and independent States. The course and results of 

 the numerous scientific missions despatched to these regions by 

 the Ministers of Education and the Colonies, as well as the 

 travels and researches of private individuals, are published in 

 this periodical ; and as there are six numbers published annually, 

 of about 200 large octavo pages each, it will readily be perceived, 

 apart altogether from the dearth of information, other than 

 political, with regard to the great Indo-Chinese peninsula, that 

 these volumes form a mine of knowledge of the most authentic 

 and trustworthy description, for the writers are for the most part 

 men who have been specially selected in France to study the 

 subjects with which they deal. Unfortunately, however, the 

 publication is but little known in this country, no copy being 

 obtainable in some of our largest official libraries. As it is on 

 sale in Saigon, and doubtless also in Paris, there is no reason 

 why a periodical so valuable should not be made accessible to 

 English students. 



We have before us the three last numbers, and from them it is 

 possible to obtain an idea of the scientific work which the 

 French are performing in their new possessions. No depart- 

 ment of research escapes their attention, and they are indefatig- 

 able in studying the country and people for whose welfare 

 they have now become responsible. In one respect these 

 volumes resemble those of many learned societies in India and 

 elsewhere : they are extremely varied in their contents. Shafts 

 have been driven in all directions, and the result is here ; but 

 when we recollect the short period that the French have been 

 even at .Saigon, the still shorter period that they have been able 

 to travel in the interior, it will be apparent that no merely private 

 society could accomplish the work done here. The traveller in 

 most parts of Cochin China still requires a guard of twenty or 

 thirty tiyaillcurs, which can only be provided by the Government. 

 Again, few private persons, however enthusiastic, could aft'ord 

 to spend several years travelling over every part of Cochin 

 China in search of ancient inscriptions, as M. Aymonier has 

 done. Such work as this could, under the circumstances, only 

 be performed with the assistance of Government ; and it is 

 greatly to the credit of the French Government that amongst 

 its responsibilities in connection with colonies in the East, it 

 recognises that of thoroughly investigating in a scientific manner 

 the people and territories around them. It has often been said 

 that the Fi'ench are more sympathetic rulers of subject races than 

 the English, and that they succeed sooner in gaining their 

 affijction ; whether this be true or not, it is certain that they go 

 the right way to rule properly, by setting themselves at the out- 

 set to comprehend what manner of people and of country it is 

 that they are called upon to rule. Science, at any rate, gains by 

 the French practice a consideration which is not very often 

 present to the minds of our colonial rulers. 



Geography naturally plays a considerable part in the Excur- 

 sions et j\ecoiitiaiisat:cis, for a great part of Cochin China is 

 still a terra incognita. For a like reason there is much that is 

 specially ethnological. Thus, in the numbers before us we have 

 two papers on the Mois tribes : one by M. Nouet, recounting a 

 journey amongst the Mois on the north-eastern frontier ; the 

 other, by M. Humann, on the independent Mois. In the first 

 these curious people are described as slothful and careless, 

 knowing nothing of money, wandering about from place to 

 place in search of subsistence, without any industry beyond 

 producing articles which are absolutely necessary, and always 

 hungry. They are excessively timid, flying into the forest on 

 the approach of a stranger ; they have no writing, and appear 

 to have no religion either; they bury and burn the dca i, but 

 there are no subsequent ceremonies in connection with the de- 

 parted. Even those within French territory lead a sav.age life ; 

 their existence is described as, not dying of hunger, rather than 

 positive living. But the race is disappearing slowly from misery 

 and disease ; the prohibition against burning the forests is said 

 to bear hardly on them, as it is the only method they know for 

 clearing patches for the cultivation of their rice. The inde- 

 pendent tribes, described by M. Humann, are braver than those 

 which are found further south ; they can work in iron, and 

 appear more provident and less nomadic. But they live amongst 

 the mountains, whither they have fled before the Annamites on 

 one side and the Siamese on the other. 



Dr. Tirant contributes a very long paper, extending over the 

 last three numbers, on the reptiles of Cochin China and Cam- 

 bodia. It does not profess to be complete, for an exhaustive 

 study of the subject would require collections and books n it to 



