Photo by the Author 



ne;st of a very common ant: Lasius (Acanthomyops) latipcs 



Only the irregular superficial galleries and chambers are shown as they appear when the 

 stone covering the nest is removed. The care of the nest is an important matter with all 

 ants, for convenience, no less than sanitation, requires that the galleries and chambers be 

 kept scrupulously clean. All species, therefore, remove any refuse food, empty cocoons, 

 pupal exuviae, meconial pellets, dead members of the colony, etc., to a proper distance from 

 the living apartments. Veritable kitchen middens are established for this purpose, either in 

 the open air or, if the colony is nesting under a large stone, in one of the deserted surface 

 galleries. 



the great majority to sterility and endow- 

 ing them with a purely nutritive or pro- 

 tective function. 



Nevertheless there are some interesting 

 minor differences in the solutions of the 

 problem of reproduction as exhibited by 

 the termites on the one hand and the 

 social Hymenoptera on the other. Al- 

 though both of these groups bring up 

 their brood in such a manner that the 

 majority of individuals in the colony are 

 sterile and only a few normally capable 

 of reproduction, the termites make sterile 

 or worker forms out of both male and 

 female individuals, whereas the wasps, 

 bees, and ants produce sterile forms only 



among the females and merely reduce the 

 number of males and permit them to de- 

 velop only at certain seasons. 



Hence among the social Hymenoptera 

 we have three castes : males, fertile fe- 

 males, or queens and sterile females, or 

 workers. The workers among ants and 

 termites, however, may be still further 

 differentiated into workers proper and 

 soldiers, the former having a nutritive, 

 the latter a protective, function. 



This remarkable method of reducing 

 the reproductivity of a society, whilst in- 

 suring its nutritive success, is of no little 

 interest at the present time. It is prob- 

 ably not a mere coincidence that we 



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