Page:Ant communities and how they are governed; a study in natural civics (IA antcommunitiesho00mcco).pdf/21



HREE years ago, in his Nature's Craftsmen, the author presented a series of original studies of the life history of sundry insects. Half of the book was given over to one of his specialties—the ants. The remainder embraced accounts of another specialty, the spiders, and of certain insects that had received particular attention as a sort of by-product of his special studies. The author's purpose therein was to give his readers a veritable natural history of the subjects treated of, in popular form, and clothed in at least some measure of the simple graces of good literary style.

The present volume, while aiming to preserve the above features, differs from Nature's Craftsmen, in that it is limited to the natural history of ants. Moreover, it considers mainly those phases of their life that are developed around their behavior as social animals. It is here that appear most clearly and fully the habits which have drawn to these insects from the earliest ages the attention of man, and have won for them a high reputation for wisdom.

From this has arisen a secondary feature of the book—viz., the indication of parallels, more or less distinct, between the communal actions of ants considered simply as a natural history, and the communal actions of man, considered, as all human beings are bound to