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Trophallaxis, the process of feeding by mutual regurgitation amongst insects, was named by the North American entomologist William Morton Wheeler in 1918. I argue that entomologists, both before and after 1918, saw mutual feeding as an integral part of the behavioral whole of the nest, and moreover related its explanatory power to theories about human society. In particular, feeding behavior was seen as the key to the riddle of the origin of sociality. I show how entomologists' precise interpretations of trophallaxis varied and explore the increasingly functional, sociological, and economic constructions of the phenomenon that they developed-without breaking with earlier tradition-into the early 1930s. The article ends by demonstrating how Aldous Huxley's bleak vision of humanity in the novel Brave New World, and its ambiguous prescription for meaningful life amidst the trappings of modernity, has much in common with metaphors generated by those studying ants., (Copyright 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Analyzes the symbolism of ants in the article 'The Empire of the Ants' published by H.G. Wells in 'The Strand Magazine.' Psychological metaphors of savage/insectan threat; Relation of the social-colonial ant with the human inhabitants in the imperial colonies; Analysis on the domesticity of ants; Nature and implications of different mentalities for human and insect.