AND THEIR REAL "NATURE. 113 



assume with some degree of certainty, that the " nur sing" 

 individuals are never themselves gemmiparous, but that 

 they are born wdth germs in the organs in which the 

 embryos are afterwards noiu-ished, and from all this it 

 appears as if the female generative organism were always 

 divided in those cases in which development by means 

 of " nurses' occm's, so that as in the more perfect females 

 an ovari/ especially, is formed, so in the " nursing'' indi- 

 ^^duals a much developed uterus is presented, in conse- 

 quence of which, they as individualized tderi, have 

 assigned to them as the object of their existence the 

 performance of the functions of a uterus, and their com- 

 plete formation must thus necessarily precede that of the 

 germs which are committed to then fostering care. A¥e 

 cannot readily perceive the reason, that because all nurs- 

 ing {mmnende) individuals must be of the female sex, it 

 should follow, that all those individuals which feed the 

 yomig {brutpßegende) should also be of that sex, and yet 

 this seems to be the law. Anatomy shows us that the 

 ''feeders' among bees, wasjps, &c., and probably those of 

 all insects living in regular societies are females, whose 

 sexual organs remain in an undeveloped state. They 

 present scarcely the vestige of an ovary ; the uterus is 

 nidimentary, and all propagation consequently in the 

 material way {inateriellen Seite), so to say, is rendered 

 impossible ; the imperfection of the organ does not even 

 allow of then acting as " nurses" (ammen,) and the 

 propagative instinct, in a physical, corporeal sense passes 

 into a loill for the propagation of the species, into a nisus 

 impelling to the feeding or nourishing of the young, and 

 the fulfilment of these impulsive duties is favoured by the 

 peculiar transformation which some of the organs undergo 

 at the expense of those intended for propagation, in order 

 that they may become adapted to the bringing up of the 

 young.* 



* The jaws of the working ants are stronger than those of the male and 

 female ; and the bees also wdiich coUeet honey and wax are provided with 

 wide mandibles, which together form a pair of forceps. The ovipositor is m 

 them converted into a spiciüuni (defensive organ), &c. 



