Let us suppose
that the individuals of the same species of ant always lived in triple
communities; and that in one of these, a large-sized female (differing also in
other characters) lived with six middle-sized and six small-sized males; in the
second community a middle-sized female lived with six large- and six small-sized
males; and in the third, a small-sized female lived with six large- and six
middle-sized males. Each of these three females, though enabled to unite with
any male, would be nearly sterile with her own two sets of males, and likewise
with two other sets of males of the same size with her own which lived in the
other two communities; but she would be fully fertile when paired with a male of
her own size. Hence the thirty-six males, distributed by half-dozens in the
three communities, would be divided into three sets of a dozen each; and these
sets, as well as the three females, would differ from one another in their
reproductive powers in exactly the same manner as do the distinct species of the
same genus. But it is a still more remarkable fact that young ants raised from
any one of the three female ants, illegitimately fertilised by a male of a
different size would resemble in a whole series of relations the hybrid
offspring from a cross between two distinct species of ants. They would be
dwarfed in stature, and more or less, or even utterly barren.
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