Page - 279 - in The Origin of Species
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Text of the Page - 279 -
CELL-MAKING INSTINCT 279
and England the slaves seem to have the exclusive care of
the larvae, and the masters alone go on slave-making expe-
ditions. In Switzerland the slaves and masters work to-
gether, making and bringing materials for the nest; both,
but chiefly the slaves, tend, and milk, as it may be called,
their aphides; and thus both collect food for the community.
In England the masters alone usually leave the nest to col-
lect building materials and food for themselves, their slaves
and larvas. So that the masters in this country receive much
less service from their slaves than they do in Switzerland.
By what steps the instinct of F. sanguinea originated I
will not pretend to conjecture. But as ants which are not
slave-makers will, as I have seen, carry off the pupa; of
other species, if scattered near their nests, it is possible that
such pupa; originally stored as food might become developed;
and the foreign ants thus unintentionally reared would then
follow their proper instincts, and do what work they could.
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 col-
lecting pupae, originally for food, might by natural selection
be strengthened and rendered permanent for the very dif-
ferent 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,
natural selection might increase and modify the instinct—
always supposing each modification to be of use to the spe-
cies-^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 enthusi-
astic 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
back to the
book The Origin of Species"
The Origin of Species
- Title
- The Origin of Species
- Author
- Charles Darwin
- Publisher
- P. F. Collier & Son
- Location
- New York
- Date
- 1909
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- Size
- 10.5 x 16.4 cm
- Pages
- 568
- Keywords
- Evolutionstheorie, Evolution, Theory of Evolution, Naturwissenschaft, Natural Sciences
- Categories
- International
- Naturwissenschaften Biologie
Table of contents
- EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 5
- AN HISTORICAL SKETCH of the Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species 9
- INTRODUCTION 21
- Variation under Domestication 25
- Variation under Nature 58
- Struggle for Existence 76
- Natural Selection; or the Survival of the Fittest 93
- Laws of Variation 145
- Difficulties of the Theory 178
- Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection 219
- Instinct 262
- Hybridism 298
- On the Imperfection of the Geological Record 333
- On the Geological Succession of Organic Beinss 364
- Geographical Distribution 395
- Geographical Distribution - continued 427
- Mutual Affinities of Organic Beings: Morphology: Embryology: Rudimentary Organs 450
- Recapitulation and Conclusion 499
- GLOSSARY 531
- INDEX 541