SOCIAL COMMUNITIES OF BEES AND ANTS arr 
Heidelberg. “He found under stones, in the spring, many 
examples of females, either solitary or accompanied only by a 
few eggs, larve, or pups. Further, he was successful in getting 
isolated females to commence nesting in confinement, and 
observed that the ant that afterwards becomes the queen, at 
first carries out by herself all the duties of the nest. Beginning 
by making a small burrow, she lays some eggs, and when these 
hatch, feeds and tends the larva and pups: the first speci- 
mens of these latter that become perfect insects are workers 
of all sizes, and at once undertake the duties of tending the 
young and feeding the mother, who, being thus freed from 
the duties of nursing and of providing food while she is her- 
self tended and fed, becomes a true queen-ant. Thus it seems 
established that, in the case of this species, the division of 
labour found in the complex community does not at first exist, 
but is correlative with increasing numbers of the society. 
Further observations as to the growth of one of these nascent 
communities, and the times and conditions under which the 
various forms of individuals composing a complete society 
first appear, would be of considerable interest.” * 
The queen does not, as in the case of the bee, deposit her 
eggs in separate cells where they are tended by nurses. The 
eggs, which are laid in the chambers of the nest, are subjected 
to much licking by the nurses ; the larvee are, moreover, moved 
-about from place to place, so as to be subjected to the requisite 
conditions of moisture and temperature. They are carefully 
cleaned, and after they have passed into the pupa stage the 
emerging insects are stripped of a delicate investing skin. 
And not only do the ants assiduously feed their young ; those 
who have gone forth and drunk their fill of sweet juices feed 
those who have remained behind. Forel took some specimens 
of Componotus ligniperdus, “and shut them up without food 
for several days, and thereafter supplied some of them with 
honey, stained with Prussian blue; being very hungry, they 
fed so greedily on this that in a few hours their hind bodies 
* The quotation is from “ The Cambridge Natural History,” vol. vi., 
“ Insects,” part ii, by David Sharp, F.R.S.; see pp. 145, 146. 
