Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/183



sibly a world record in ovulation. The royal chamber is usually placed near the fungus gardens, and as fast as the eggs are delivered by the queen the attendant workers carry them off to the garden and distribute them over the fungus beds, where the young on hatching can feed and grow without further attention. From a study of the termites we may draw a few lessons for ourselves. In the first place, we see that the social form of lire is only one of the ways of living; but that, wherever it is adopted, it involves an interdependence of individuals upon one another. The social or community way of living is best pronloted by a division of labor anlong groups of individuals, allowing each to specialize and there- by to attain proficiency in his particular kind of work. The means by which the ternaites have achieved the bene- fits of social lire are not the same as those adopted by the ants or social bees, and they have little in common with the principles of our own social organization. All of which goes to show that in the social world, as in the physical world, the end alone justifies the means, so far as nature s concerned. Justice to the individual is a human concept; we strive to equalize the benefits and hardships of the social form of lire, and in so far as we achieve this aire out civilization differs from that of the insects.

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