Chap. VI. AFFINITIES AND GENEALOGY. 187 
powers of a female ant, would require, as Pierre Huber 
has shewn, a large volume; I may, however, briefly 
specify a few points. Ants communicate information 
to each other, and several unite for the same work, 
or games of play. They recognise their fellow-ants 
after months of absence. They build great edifices, 
keep them clean, close the doors in the evening, and 
post sentries. They make roads, and even tunnels 
under rivers. They collect food for the community, 
and when an object, too large for entrance, is brought 
to the nest, they enlarge the door, and afterwards 
build it up again . 2 They go out to battle in regular 
bands, and freely sacrifice their lives for the common 
weal. They emigrate in accordance with a precon- 
certed plan. They capture slaves. They keep Aphides 
as milch-cows. They move the eggs of their aphides, 
as well as their own eggs and cocoons, into w T arm parts 
of the nest, in order that they may be quickly hatched ; 
and endless similar facts could be given. On the 
whole, the difference in mental power between an ant 
and a coccus is immense ; yet no one has ever dreamed 
of placing them in distinct classes, much less in distinct 
kingdoms. No doubt this interval is bridged over by 
the intermediate mental powers of many other insects ; 
and this is not the case with man and the higher apes. 
But we have every reason to believe that breaks in the 
series are simply the result of many forms having be- 
come extinct. 
Professor Owen, relying chiefly on the structure of 
the brain, has divided the mammalian series into four 
sub-classes. One of these he devotes to man ; in another 
he places both the marsupials and the monotremata; 
so that he makes man as distinct from all other mam- 
2 See the very Interesting article, “ L’Xnstinct chez les Insectes,” by 
M. George Pouchet, 4 Kevue des Deux Mondes,’ Feb. 1870, p. 682. 
