THE PROGRESS OF THE RACE 215 



tuft of the AndrenntE, nor the ventral brush of the Gastrilegids. 

 Her tiny claws must laboriously gather the powder from the 

 calyces, which powder she needs must swallow to take it back 

 to her lair. She has no implements other than her tongue, 

 her mouth, and her claws ; but her tongue is too short, 

 her claws are feeble, and her mandibles without strength. 

 Unable to produce wax, bore holes through wood, or dig in 

 the earth, she contrives clumsy galleries in the tender pith of 

 dry berries ; erects a few awkward cells, stores these with a 

 little food for the offspring she never will see, and then, having 

 accomplished this poor task of hers, that tends she knows not 

 whither and of whose aim we are no less ignorant, she goes off 

 and dies in a corner, as solitarily as she had lived. 



108 



We shall pass over many intermediary species, wherein we 

 may see the gradual lengthening of the tongue, enabling more 

 nectar to be extracted from the cups of corollas, and the dawn- 

 ing formation and subsequent development of the apparatus for 

 collecting pollen — hairs, tufts, brushes on the tibia, on the tarsus 

 and abdomen — as also claws and mandibles becoming stronger, 

 useful secretions being formed, and the genius that presides 

 over the construction of dwellings seeking and finding extra- 

 ordinary improvement in every direction. Such a study would 

 need a whole volume. I will merely outline a chapter of it, 

 less than a chapter, a page, which shall show how the hesitat- 

 ing endeavours of the will to live and be happier result in the 

 birth, development, and affirmation of social intelligence. 



We have seen the unfortunate Prosopis silently bearing 



