Page:Ants, Wheeler (1910).djvu/45

Διὸ δεῖ μὴ δυσχεραίνειν παιδικῶς τὴν περὶ τῶν ἀτιμοτέρων ζώων ἐπίσκεψιν. Ἐν πᾶσι γὰρ τοῖς φυσικοῖς ἔνεστί τι θαυμαστόν· καὶ καθάπερ Ἡράκλειτος λέγεται πρὸς τοὺς ξένους εἰπεῖν τους βουλομένους αὐτῷ ἐντυχεῖν, οἳ ἐπειδὴ προσιόντες εἶδον αὐτὸν θερόμενον πρὸς τῷ ἴπνῳ, ἐστησαν· ἐκέλευσε γὰρ ἀυτὸυς εἰσιέναι θαῤῥούντας· εἶναι γὰρ καὶ ἐνταῦθα θεούς· οὕτω καὶ πρὸς τὴν ζήτησιν περὶ ἐκάστου τῶν ζώων ποσιέναι δεῖ μὴ δυσωπούμενον, ὡς ἐν ἅπασιν ὅντος φυσικοῦ καὶ καλοῦ.

"Wherefore we ought not childishly to neglect the study of even the most despised animals, for in all natural objects there lies something marvellous. And as it is related of Heraclitus that certain strangers who came to visit him, when they found him warming himself at the kitchen fire, stopped short—he bade them enter without fear, for there also were the gods: so we ought to enter without false shame on the examination of all living beings, for in all of them resides something of nature and beauty."—Aristotle, "De Partibus Animalium," I, 5.

The ants form a natural family (Formicidæ), or, according to some authorities, a superfamily (Formicina or Formicoidea), comprising five subfamilies (Ponerinæ, Dorylinæ, Myrmicinæ, Dolichoderinæ and Camponotinæ), embracing about 5,000 described species, subspecies and varieties, and are placed at the head of the order Hymenoptera, a vast assemblage of insects including also the bees, wasps, ichneumon flies, velvet-ants, saw-flies and many smaller groups. From all the other members of the order the ants may be readily distinguished by a series of characters, perhaps the most striking of which is the differentiation of the abdomen into two strongly marked regions, a slender one- or two-jointed, highly mobile pedicel, and a larger, more compact terminal portion, the gaster. Another distinguishing character is furnished by the antennæ which are elbowed and have the first joint greatly elongated in the female. The species are all social, and with the exception of a few parasitic forms, are always at least trimorphic, i. e., the female is not only sharply differentiated from the male, but itself appears under two very distinct phases, a fertile queen, or female phase proper, and a usually sterile worker phase. The former is nearly always winged like the male, but loses the wings after fecundation, the latter, except in rare abnormalities, never bears these organs. In a few species the females, and in many the workers may again show differentiation into two sub-phases (Fig. 1). Owing to this remarkable morphological instability or tendency of the female to assume different