REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 1916 I 01 



ment of hereditary community parasites, defectives, congenital or 

 confirmed misdemeanants, whatever the form of degeneration may 

 be, by recognition of the presumption that in so far as they can not 

 be physiologically corrected, they are abandoned types in which 

 there lies little hope of repair. I can state this conclusion only thus 

 succinctly without here attempting to present or argue its many 

 ramifications. 



b Soon after the great outburst of articulate life in the Cambrian, 

 wherein, so far as our present knowledge permits, we find the lines 

 along which have come the complicated expressions of today ; some- 

 where in there, we may not say securely now, branched out the 

 great phylum which led into the world of insects. We are wont to 

 say that the first whirr of insect wings was made by the dragon 

 flies and great cockroaches of the Devonian forests — an admission 

 which of course implies that long earlier ages saw the differentia- 

 tion of this type of life. At all events the six-legged type of articu- 

 lates adapted to life in the water and air, full of vivacity and agility, 

 with full independence, equipped with all potentialities that come 

 from abundant innervation — this type, this six-legged articulate 

 expression of existence, the insecta, started reasonably early on its 

 career. It is my desire to note only in passing that, however close 

 and direct may be the derivation of the vertebrate type from the 

 primitive articulate stock, we have no inheritance from and hence 

 only a collateral interest in this six-legged type of articulate life. 

 Yet the outcome of development along this line has led to most 

 extraordinary displays of morphological and psychic differentiation. 

 A distinguished naturalist has said that the brain of an ant is the most 

 marvelous speck of matter in existence. I hardly need, before this 

 audience, to recall the exquisite and minute specialization in mor- 

 phology, physiological function, performance and, I should say, 

 conscious or at least psychic behavior among the most advanced 

 attainments of development in the six-legged articulates, the social 

 insects. The ant colony is the ideal of differentiation of function. 

 Its members are by birth and inheritance, food and training, destined 

 to certain specific duties in the colony. Armies are marshalled, 

 wars are waged, the wounded nursed, the captives are trained for 

 their duties, gardens are planted and crops are harvested; the 

 stock is fed and food is stored, and a score of marvelous concerted 

 doings which amaze us by the perfection of their totality, which 

 is — the welfare of the community. Here the individual is actually 

 constructed nervously and physically, anatomically and physio- 



