XX CURIOUS HOMES AND -THEIR TENANTS. 



can, reason out the causes of the similarity and the dis- 

 similarity in the domestic economy of the savage and of 

 the ant, wasp, or bee. 



A brief description of the humble forms of life instru- 

 mental in building the great common homes of all land 

 animals, including man, of course follows. The interde- 

 pendence of natural history and geology here suggested 

 in the formation of chalk and limestone and of coral reefs 

 forms a most interesting subject for study and investiga- 

 tion. 



Burrows, rude as the dens of wild beasts, and far infe- 

 rior to the elaborate underground homes of many sorts of 

 birds, beasts, and insects, seem to have been the first habi- 

 tations of men. Certain tribes of savages and of the 

 dwellers in the frigid zone remain burrowers to the present 

 day. But among animals a relatively greater proportion 

 of lower mammals and of insects than of birds or men ' 

 excavate homes in the earth, and the physical and mental 

 peculiarities of the classes mentioned that lead to a prefer- 

 ence for underground homes form in this case a proper 

 subject for investigation. 



In the section devoted to ants, these, which with the 

 bees, with the single exception of the termites, constitute 

 perhaps the most extraordinary of all the tribes of the in- 

 sect world, are briefly considei-ed and their wonderful in- 

 telligence and social order described. Ants have devel- 

 oped a communistic order, a socialistic form of society, that 

 is not only perfect of its kind, but is possibly the only one 

 that can be maintained among more or less intelligent be- 

 ings. These little citizens are never governed by personal 

 considerations ; all their allegiance is given to the com- 

 munity of which they are members. No family relations 

 closer than those they owe to the whole society, no inter- 

 ests dearer than those that bind them to the body corpo- 

 rate, can exist. The division of labor among the different 

 parts of the community does not elevate some and depress 



