If their
presence proved useful to the species which had seized them--if it
were more advantageous to this species to capture workers than to
procreate them--the habit of collecting pupae originally for food
might by natural selection be strengthened and rendered permanent for
the very different purpose of raising slaves. When the instinct was
once acquired, if carried out to a much less extent even than in our
British F. sanguinea, which, as we have seen, is less aided by its
slaves than the same species in Switzerland, I can see no difficulty
in natural selection increasing and modifying the instinct--always
supposing each modification to be of use to the species--until an ant
was formed as abjectly dependent on its slaves as is the Formica
rufescens.
CELL-MAKING INSTINCT OF THE HIVE-BEE.
I will not here enter on minute details on this subject, but will
merely give an outline of the conclusions at which I have arrived. He
must be a dull man who can examine the exquisite structure of a comb,
so beautifully adapted to its end, without enthusiastic admiration. We
hear from mathematicians that bees have practically solved a recondite
problem, and have made their cells of the proper shape to hold the
greatest possible amount of honey, with the least possible consumption
of precious wax in their construction. It has been remarked that a
skilful workman, with fitting tools and measures, would find it very
difficult to make cells of wax of the true form, though this is
perfectly effected by a crowd of bees working in a dark hive.
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