THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



those who remember that they were at first of narrower range, perhaps { 

 purely sexual. 



Since instinct is a form of consciousness — otherwise there is no 

 distinction between it and reflex action — and since we cannot describe 

 consciousness in terms of a plant's functions, to speak of the social 

 instincts of plants is to use words without meaning. To describe an 

 oak-forest _as a society of oak trees would also be an abuse of language, 

 nor could such an aggregation of plant units ever give rise to any 

 instinct, social or otherwise. 



Amongst animals of very low organization it is by no means unusual 

 for large numbers to be found occupying relatively small areas ; but 

 such aggregations have no better claim to be deemed societies than has 

 an oak-forest or a wheat-field ; nor could it be said that such aggre- 

 gations needed study, were it not that they help to show one of the 

 ways in which societies originated, and that in the sub-conscious mani- 

 festations of the diffused nervous systems of their units we may detect 

 the dawning of some social instincts. 



Without division of labour no complex or highly developed society 

 can exist, and division of labour begins amongst very lowly animals ; 

 yet, though many of the colonial Hydrozoa exhibit this elementary 

 social feature, none of them can properly be classed as social organisms. 



It is only amongst Arthropods and Vertebrates that true sociality 

 appears, and even in these two sub-kingdoms it is neither so common nor 

 so widespread as is sometimes supposed. Despite the enormous number 

 and variety of animals included in the Arthropod group, sociality has 

 only arisen in one class of them, the Insects, and in but a few species ! 

 of two orders within that class. Of these the oldest are the so*called 

 "white ants " belonging to a family (Termitidae) of high antiquity, 

 which already existed in the coal age, and whose species still flourish 

 in most tropical and sub-tropical regions. Many of the Termite species 

 build nests 10 or 15 feet in height, and of elaborate internal arrangement ; 

 whilst among the inhabitants of the nest there is considerable diversity 

 of structure and function, and an organization to which the name social 

 cannot reasonably be refused. Amongst higher and, geologically 

 speaking, more modern insects the Hymenoptera supply numerous in- 

 stances of sociality. From very early times ants and bees have been 

 regarded as models of what men should be, and moralists from King! 

 Solomon to Dr. Watts have not hesitated to stimulate the evil passions]) 

 of unregenerate humanity by ill-timed references to the forethought 

 of the ant and the industry of the bee. 



Though some species of both ants, bees, and wasps are commonly! 

 spoken of as social, it must not be forgotten that other and more primi- 

 tive species of these groups are solitary, and that in its stricter sense j 

 the adjective social is applicable to some species of ants only ; the 



