Page:The Effect of External Influences upon Development.djvu/73

Rh in the individual life of the worker may have been transmitted to the next generation.

Such views have, indeed, been expressed to me privately, and my reply to them would be as follows. In the first place, the whole argument does not hold good in the case of bees, because it is certain that the males arise from eggs laid by the queen. Secondly, it is not tenable as regards ants, for the workers of one species at least (Tetramorium caespitum) possess no egg-tubes at all, and consequently cannot produce any eggs. This state of things could not have occurred if the formation of the colonies depended on the production of the males by the workers only. The gradually decreasing number of egg-tubes in the ovaries of the workers in the different species proves, on the contrary, that these egg-tubes are valueless for the maintenance of the species in the struggle for existence.