It is these considerations of the wider issues that give such a peculiar interest to the patient observations which have recently been brought to bear upon the habits of the social insects, especially of ants, which, living in communities, present so many of the conditions of human life, and the development of the “tribal self” from these conditions, to which Professor Clifford attributed the genesis of moral sense.

In order to pass in review these interesting observations and bring out their significance, I must go over ground which is doubtless familiar to most of my readers.

The winged ants, which often excite surprise, are simply the virgin queens and the males.  They are entirely dependent upon the workers, and are reared in the same nest.  September is the month usually selected as the marriage season, and in the early twilight of a warm day the air will be dark with the winged lovers.  After the wedding trip the female tears off her wings—­partly by pulling, but mostly by contortions of her body—­for her life under ground would render wings not only unnecessary, but cumbersome; while the male is not exposed to the danger of being eaten by his cannibal spouse, as among spiders, nor to be set upon and assassinated by infuriated spinsters, as among bees, but drags out a precarious existence for a few days, and then either dies or is devoured by insectivorous insects.  There is reason to believe that some females are fertilized before leaving the nest.  I have observed flights of the common Formica rufa, in which the females flew away solitary and to great distances before they descended.  In such cases it is certain that they were fertilized before their flight.

When a fertilized queen starts a colony it proceeds much in this way:  When a shaft has been sunk deep enough to insure safety, or a sheltered position secured underneath the trunk of a tree or a stone, the queen in due time deposits her first eggs, which are carefully reared and nourished.  The first brood consists wholly of workers, and numbers between twenty-five and forty in some species, but is smaller in others.  The mother ant seeks food for herself and her young till the initial brood are matured, when they take up the burden of life, supply the rapidly increasing family with food, as well as the mother ant, enlarge the quarters, share in the necessary duties, and, in short, become the real workers of the nest before they are scarcely out of the shell.  The mother ant is seldom allowed to peer beyond her dark quarters, and then only in company with her body guard.  She is fed and cared for by the workers, and she in turn assists them in the rearing of the young, and has even been known to give her strength for the extension of the formicary grounds.  Several queens often exist in one nest, and I have seen workers drag newly fertilized queens into a formicary to enlarge their resources.  As needs be, the quantity of eggs laid is very great, for the loss of life in the ranks of the workers is very large; few survive the season of their hatching, although queens have been known to live eight years. (Lubbock.)