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But, on the other hand, the workers in all species have undergone modifications in a positive direction, as, for instance, the greater development of brain. In many species large workers have evolved,--the so-called _soldiers_, with enormous jaws and teeth, which defend the colony,--and in others there are _small_ workers which have taken over other special functions, such as the rearing of the young Aphides. This kind of division of the workers into two castes occurs among several tropical species of ants, but it is also present in the Italian species, _Colobopsis truncata_. Beautifully as the size of the jaws could be explained as due to the increased use made of them by the "soldiers," or the enlarged brain as due to the mental activities of the workers, the fact of the infertility of these forms is an insurmountable obstacle to accepting such an explanation. Neither jaws nor brain can have been evolved on the Lamarckian principle. The problem of coadaptation is no easier in the case of the ant than in the case of the Giant Stag. Darwin himself gave a pretty illustration to show how imposing the difference between the two kinds of workers in one species would seem if we translated it into human terms. In regard to the Driver ants (Anomma) we must picture to ourselves a piece of work, "for instance the building of a house, being carried on by two kinds of workers, of which one group was five feet four inches high, the other sixteen feet high."[39]

That pedantic charge of inaccuracy, with which I have already dealt in another place, in connection with another and perhaps a greater man, is not applicable to Froude. He was hasty, and in his historical work the result certainly was that he put down things upon insufficient evidence, or upon evidence but half read; but even in his historical work (which deals remember, with the most highly controversial part of English history) he is as accurate as anybody else, except perhaps Lingard. That the man was by nature accurate, well read and of a good memory, appears continually throughout this book, and the more widely one has read one's self, the more one appreciates this truth.

• Nicholas Bredimus
• Nicholas Bredimus
• Nicholas Bredimus
• Nicholas Bredimus
• Nicholas Bredimus

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