ants.’
‘So you could not say with the Fire Ants or the tucunderas in the forest, who made me suffer torments for weeks when I unwarily stirred them up. In Brazil the Fire Ant is King, they say, and rightly. It cannot be kept down, or diverted, or avoided—men leave their houses to escape its ravages.’
Matty Crompton, tightlipped, picked individual ants out of her cuffs and scattered them in the collecting boxes. William followed a tunnel, and came upon the brood-chamber of the ant Queen.
‘Here she is. In her glory.’
Matty Crompton peered in.
‘You would not suppose her to be of the same species as her rapid little servants—’
‘No. Though she is less disproportionately gross than the termite Queens, who are like huge inflated tubes, the size of haystacks compared to their docile little mates, who are in attendance in the same chamber, and the workers, who clamber all over them, cleaning and repairing and carrying away the endless succession of eggs as well as any debris.’
The Queen of the Wood Ants was only half as large again as her daughter-workers/servants. She was swollen and glossy, unlike the matt workers, and appeared to be striped red and white. The striping was in fact the result of the bloating of her body by the eggs inside it, which pushed apart her red-brown armour-plating, showing more fragile, more elastic, whitish skin in the interstices. Herhead appeared relatively small. William picked her up with his forceps—several workers came with her, clinging to her legs. He placed her on cottonwool in a collecting-box and directed Miss Crompton in the collection of various sizes of worker ants and grubs and cocoons from various parts of the nest.
‘We should also take a sample of the earth and the vegetable matter, from which they have made their nest, and note what they appear to be eating—and the little girls may usefully experiment with their preference in foods, if they have patient natures, when they are in their new home.’
‘Should we not search for male ants also?’
‘There will be none, at this time of the year. They are only present in the nest in June, July and possibly August. They are born sometimes—it is thought—from eggs laid by unfertilised workers—a kind of parthenogenesis. They do not long survive the mating of the Queens in the Summer months. They are easy to recognise—they have wings and hugely developed eyes—and they do not
appear
to be in any way able to fend for themselves, or build, or forage. Natural Selection appears to have favoured in them the development of those skills which guarantee success in the nuptial dance, at the expense of the others—’
‘I cannot help observing that this appears to be the
opposite
to human societies, when it is the woman whose success in that kind of performance determines their lives—’
‘I have thought along those lines myself. There is a pleasing paradox in the bright balldresses, the
floating
of young girls in our world, and the dark erectness of the young men. In savage societies, as much as in birds and butterflies, it is the males who flaunt their beauty. But I do not know that the condition of the Queen here is much happier than that of the swarms of useless and disregarded suitors. I ask myself, are these little creatures, who run up and down, and carry, and feed each other lovingly, and bite enemies—arethey truly individuals—or are they like the cells in our body, all parts of one whole, all directed by some mind—the Spirit of the Nest—which uses all, Queen, servants, slaves, dancing partners—for the good of the race itself, the species itself—’
‘And do you go on, Mr Adamson, to ask
that
question about human societies?’
‘It is tempting. I come from the North of England, where the scientific mill owners and the mine owners would like to make men into smoothly gliding parts of a giant machine. Dr Andrew Ure’s
Philosophy of Manufacturers
wishes that workers could be trained to
‘So you could not say with the Fire Ants or the tucunderas in the forest, who made me suffer torments for weeks when I unwarily stirred them up. In Brazil the Fire Ant is King, they say, and rightly. It cannot be kept down, or diverted, or avoided—men leave their houses to escape its ravages.’
Matty Crompton, tightlipped, picked individual ants out of her cuffs and scattered them in the collecting boxes. William followed a tunnel, and came upon the brood-chamber of the ant Queen.
‘Here she is. In her glory.’
Matty Crompton peered in.
‘You would not suppose her to be of the same species as her rapid little servants—’
‘No. Though she is less disproportionately gross than the termite Queens, who are like huge inflated tubes, the size of haystacks compared to their docile little mates, who are in attendance in the same chamber, and the workers, who clamber all over them, cleaning and repairing and carrying away the endless succession of eggs as well as any debris.’
The Queen of the Wood Ants was only half as large again as her daughter-workers/servants. She was swollen and glossy, unlike the matt workers, and appeared to be striped red and white. The striping was in fact the result of the bloating of her body by the eggs inside it, which pushed apart her red-brown armour-plating, showing more fragile, more elastic, whitish skin in the interstices. Herhead appeared relatively small. William picked her up with his forceps—several workers came with her, clinging to her legs. He placed her on cottonwool in a collecting-box and directed Miss Crompton in the collection of various sizes of worker ants and grubs and cocoons from various parts of the nest.
‘We should also take a sample of the earth and the vegetable matter, from which they have made their nest, and note what they appear to be eating—and the little girls may usefully experiment with their preference in foods, if they have patient natures, when they are in their new home.’
‘Should we not search for male ants also?’
‘There will be none, at this time of the year. They are only present in the nest in June, July and possibly August. They are born sometimes—it is thought—from eggs laid by unfertilised workers—a kind of parthenogenesis. They do not long survive the mating of the Queens in the Summer months. They are easy to recognise—they have wings and hugely developed eyes—and they do not
appear
to be in any way able to fend for themselves, or build, or forage. Natural Selection appears to have favoured in them the development of those skills which guarantee success in the nuptial dance, at the expense of the others—’
‘I cannot help observing that this appears to be the
opposite
to human societies, when it is the woman whose success in that kind of performance determines their lives—’
‘I have thought along those lines myself. There is a pleasing paradox in the bright balldresses, the
floating
of young girls in our world, and the dark erectness of the young men. In savage societies, as much as in birds and butterflies, it is the males who flaunt their beauty. But I do not know that the condition of the Queen here is much happier than that of the swarms of useless and disregarded suitors. I ask myself, are these little creatures, who run up and down, and carry, and feed each other lovingly, and bite enemies—arethey truly individuals—or are they like the cells in our body, all parts of one whole, all directed by some mind—the Spirit of the Nest—which uses all, Queen, servants, slaves, dancing partners—for the good of the race itself, the species itself—’
‘And do you go on, Mr Adamson, to ask
that
question about human societies?’
‘It is tempting. I come from the North of England, where the scientific mill owners and the mine owners would like to make men into smoothly gliding parts of a giant machine. Dr Andrew Ure’s
Philosophy of Manufacturers
wishes that workers could be trained to
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