ABSTRACT
The members of insect societies have solved some problem on instinctive and physiological lines. They have brought about the best possible division of a communal food supply by methods which, if strange and often disgusting to human minds, are as effective as any system of foodcontrol invented by man. Queens and workers come from fertilized eggs, drones from unfertilized, but the difference between queens and workers seems to be determined by the type of food given to the larva. So that in the hive food control is also birth control. Termite societies therefore rest on a basis of physiological functions and of instincts, each one as complex and highly organized as those which form the basis of the relationship between a mammalian mother and her children. But alas, insect societies are no more perfect than human, and parasites can as easily find a place in an economic system determined by instinct, as in the products of intelligence, enlightened self-interest.
