To what does John Steinbeck compare the town in chapter three of The Pearl?

The
very first paragraph of chapter 3 has the descriptive comparison that the question is asking
about.

A town is a thing like a
colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a
thing separate from all other towns, so that there are no two towns alike. And a town has a
whole emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to be solved. News seems
to move faster than small boys can scramble and dart to tell it, faster than women can call it
over the fences.

As a biology
teacher, this paragraph has always intrigued me because the first statement declares that a town
is like "a colonial animal" instead of saying that a town is like an animal colony.
Flipping those two words around is a big deal. An animal colony is the big picture. It is the
group of same-species organisms that are living and working together to form a cohesive and
working unit. Ant colonies and bee colonies are good examples of animal colonies. A key to these
colonies is that a certain amount of specialization exists: not all of the individuals in the
colony have the same abilities or responsibilities. Comparing a town to an animal colony makes
sense; however, comparing a town to a colonial animal doesn't make as much sense to me. This
would focus on a single animal within the colonyfor example, a worker bee. It has its own
responsibility to the greater colony, just as a shopkeeper has a responsibility to the town.
Saying a town is like that single individual doesn't quite make sense, unless that town is an
individual piece of an entire state or country, yet the narrator never opens up that
possibility. What is also disconcerting to me as a biology teacher is that the second sentence
begins describing an individual organism. It narrates about specific body parts and body systems
that function to keep the individual organism functioning. A colonial animal has those parts,
but the description makes it seem like those individual parts are key components of the larger
entity/colony/town.

But ultimately, whether or not the wording matches the
scientific jargon isn't what is important. What is important is that the narrator shows readers
how a town is like a living, unique entity made of many unique parts that work in harmony with
each other to do something as simple as send a message across town.