186 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 
called Melipona and Trigona there are permanent 
societies but with imperfect combs; in the hive- 
bees we have to do with permanent societies and 
with perfect combs. The elaborate storing, carried 
to abnormal exuberance under man’s domesticating 
tutelage, is correlated with surviving the winter— 
i.e. with permanence, and with the survival of the 
mothers after the adolescence of their offspring— 
i.e. with the possibility of social tradition. The 
transition from purely domestic storing to social 
storing illustrated by the bees on the instinctive 
level is closely paralleled by what has happened 
in mankind on the intelligent level. 
It is impossible to think of storing without a 
vision of Solomon’s ant “ which, having no guide, 
overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the sum- 
mer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.” And, 
as among bees, we find all grades among ants from 
those that do not store at all to those that make a 
fine art of it. But every naturalist must put the 
brake on when he begins to descant on the pismires, 
and we shall confine ourselves to one illustration. 
According to recent studies of the common Mediter- 
ranean ant, Aphenogaster barbarus, the seeds which 
are collected are kept for a time dry and are eventu- 
ally put out in the rain so that they begin to germi- 
nate. This has the advantage of bursting the hard 
seed-coats, and in some cases of starting processes 
of fermentation. At a certain stage, however, the 
ants kill the embryo-plant by biting off the radicle 
or other parts, and the seeds are dried again in 
