ANT COMMUNITIES 



21 



cision and regularity resembling the subordinate parts 

 of a piece of machinery. I came to the conclusion, at 

 last, that they have no very precisely defined function. 

 They cannot, however, be entirely useless to the com- 

 munity, for the sustenance of an idle class of such bulky 

 individuals would be too heavy a charge for the species 

 to sustain. I think they serve, in some sort, as passive 

 instruments of protection to the real workers. Their 

 enormously large, hard, and indestructible heads may be 

 of use in protecting them against the attacks of insecti- 

 vorous animals. They would be, on this view, a kind of 

 ' pieces de resistance ' serving as a foil against onslaughts 

 made on the main body of workers. 



The third order of workers is the most curious of all. 

 If the top of a small, fresh hillock, one in which the 

 thatching process is going on, be taken off, a broad cylin- 

 drical shaft is disclosed, at a depth of about two feet from 

 the surface. If this be probed with a stick, which may be 

 done to the extent of three or four feet without touching 

 bottom, a small number of colossal fellows will slowly 

 begin to make their way up the smooth sides of the mine. 

 Their heads are of the same size as those of the second 

 class ; but the front is clothed with hairs, instead of being 

 polished, and they have in the middle of the forehead a 

 twin ocellus, or simple eye, of quite different structure from 

 the ordinary compound eyes, on the sides of the head. 

 This frontal eye is totally wanting in the other workers, 

 and is not known in any other kind of a,nt. The 

 apparition of these strange creatures from the cavern- 

 ous depths of the mine reminded me, when I first observed 

 them, of the Cyclopes of Homeric fable. They were not 

 very pugnacious, as I feared they would be, and I had no 

 difficulty in securing a few with my fingers. I never saw 

 them under any other circumstances than those here related, 

 and what their special functions may be I cannot divine. 



The whole arrangement of a Formicarium, or ant- 

 colony, and all the varied activity of ant-life, are directed 

 to one main purpose : the perpetuation and dissemination 

 of the species. Most of the labour which we see per- 

 formed by the workers has for its end the sustenance and 

 welfare of the young brood, which are helpless grubs. 

 The true females are incapable of attending to the wants 

 of their offspring ; and it is on the poor sterile workers, 

 who are denied all the other pleasures of maternity. 



