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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 805 



devoid of memory." The third view is said 

 to be wholly untenable, and the second is con- 

 sidered " far and away the most plausible." 

 However, on an earlier page Forel is quoted to 

 the effect that Polyergus, after plundering a 

 nest, appears to remember whether any pupse 

 were left, and in that case returns for them: 

 " memory alone, i. e., the recollection that 

 many pupse still remain behind in the plun- 

 dered nest, can induce them to return." This 

 seems to imply the iirst of the three alter- 

 natives, unless we hold that departure from 

 an empty nest discharges a psychological 

 state which would otherwise act as a stimulus 

 to return. At all events. Dr. Wheeler has 

 little sympathy with the purely mechanical 

 interpretation of insect behavior. " I have 

 unintentionally sat on nests of Vespa ger- 

 manica and Pogonomyrmex harbatus," he re- 

 marks, " and while I have no doubt that I 

 myself acted reflexly under the circumstances, 

 it will take quite an army of physiologists to 

 convince me that these creatures were acting 

 as nothing but reflex machines." 



At the end of the chapter on the degenerate 

 slave-makers there is a bit of sociology which 

 is worth quoting: 



The zoologist, as such, is not concerned with 

 the ethical and sociological aspects of parasitism, 

 but the series of ants we have been considering 

 in this and the four preceding chapters can not 

 fail to arrest the attention of those to whom a 

 knowledge of the paragon of social animals is 

 after all one of the chief aims of existence. He 

 who without prejudice studies the history of man- 

 kind will note that many organizations that thrive 

 on the capital accumulated by other members of 

 the community, without an adequate return in 

 productive labor, bear a significant resemblance to 

 many of the social parasites among ants. This 

 resemblance has been studied by sociologists, who 

 have also been able to point to detailed coin- 

 cidences and analogies between human and animal 

 parasitism in general. Space and the character 

 of this work, of course, forbid a consideration of 

 the various parasitic or semi-parasitic institu- 

 tions and organizations — social, political, ecclesi- 

 astical and criminal — that have at their inception 

 timidly struggled for adoption and support, and, 

 after having obtained these, have grown great and 

 insolent, only to degenerate into nuisances from 



which the sane and productive members of the 

 community have the greatest difficulty in freeing 

 themselves. 



Not many adverse criticisms occur to one 

 and these relate only to minor details. I 

 have found some practical inconvenience 

 from a lack of connection between the illus- 

 trations and the text. In some cases the il- 

 lustrations (e. g., those of Leptanilla on p. 

 262) arouse a lively curiosity, and one is dis- 

 appointed not to find anywhere in the book a 

 suitable explanation of the peculiarities fig- 

 ured. There are some slight errors and mis- 

 prints, mostly of little consequence; I venture 

 to remark that the bee cited on p. 209 is 

 Ceratina nanula, not nana. It is rather dis- 

 couraging to find two figures of Cremaste- 

 gaster nests built round coccids, and not even 

 the genus of the coccid given. 



In the chapter on fossil ants, there is a 

 curious quotation from Emery which refers 

 to the ants of Sicilian amber as indicating 

 the condition of things " at the beginning of 

 the Tertiary," and assumes that the Sicilian 

 and Prussian ambers were contemporaneous. 

 As is properly stated on another page, the 

 Sicilian amber is very much later than the 

 Prussian, and neither belongs to the earlier 

 part of the Tertiary. None of the European 

 localities for fossil ants seem to be older than 

 Oligoeene, but the American Green River 

 beds are now known to be Eocene, and the 

 two species indicated therefrom by Scudder 

 are apparently the oldest known ants. There 

 is on p. 162 a reference (which I have not 

 followed up) to ants in the amber of Nan- 

 tucket, " which is attributed to the Tertiary." 

 This should certainly be looked into, as there 

 is a possibility that the amber referred to may 

 be of Cretaceous age. 



There are some very useful appendices: 

 {A) Methods of Collecting, Mounting and 

 Studying Ants; (B) Key to the North Amer- 

 ican forms, down to the subgenera; (C) Com- 

 plete list of North American (north of Mex- 

 ico) Ants, with localities; (Z?) Methods of 

 Destroying Ants, and {E) a voluminous 

 (though still incomplete!) Bibliography. 



T. D. A. COCKERELL 



