| → had come to be 1859 1860 1861 1866 |
| were 1869 1872 |
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linked together by individuals taken out of the same nest: I have myself compared perfect gradations of this kind. It
that the larger or the smaller sized workers are the most numerous; or that both large and small are numerous,
those of an intermediate size
in numbers. Formica flava has larger and smaller workers, with some
intermediate size; and, in this species, as Mr. F. Smith has observed, the larger workers have simple eyes (ocelli), which though small can be plainly distinguished, whereas the smaller workers have their ocelli rudimentary. Having carefully dissected several specimens of these workers, I can affirm that the eyes are far more rudimentary in the smaller workers than can be accounted for merely by their proportionally lesser size; and I fully believe, though I dare not assert so positively, that the workers of intermediate size have their ocelli in an exactly intermediate condition. So that
have two bodies of sterile workers in the same nest, differing not only in size, but in their organs of vision, yet connected by some few members in an
condition. I may digress by adding, that if the smaller workers had been the most useful to the community, and those males and females had been continually selected, which produced more and more of the smaller workers, until all the workers
→had come to be
in this condition; we should then have had a species of ant with neuters
nearly
the same condition
those of Myrmica. For the workers of Myrmica have not even rudiments of ocelli, though the male and female ants of this genus have well-developed ocelli. |
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| I may give one other case: so confidently did I expect
find gradations
important
between the different castes of neuters in the same species, that I gladly availed myself of Mr. F. Smith's offer of
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