PREFACE 



THREE years ago, in his Nature's Craftsmen, the au- 

 thor presented a series of original studies of the life 

 history of sundry insects. Half of the book was given 

 over to one of his specialties the ants. The remainder 

 embraced accounts of another specialty, the spiders, 

 and of certain insects that had received particular 

 attention as a sort of by-product of his special studies. 

 The author's purpose therein was to give his readers a 

 veritable natural history of the subjects treated of, in 

 popular form, and clothed in at least some measure of 

 the simple graces of good literary style. 



The present volume, while aiming to preserve the 

 above features, differs from Nature's Craftsmen, in that 

 it is limited to the natural history of ants. Moreover, 

 it considers mainly those phases of their life that are 

 developed around their behavior as social animals. 

 It is here that appear most clearly and fully the habits 

 which have drawn to these insects from the earliest ages 

 the attention of man, and have won for them a high 

 reputation for wisdom. 



From this has arisen a secondary feature of the book 



-viz., the indication of parallels, more or less distinct, 



between the communal actions of ants considered 



simply as natural history, and the communal actions of 



man, considered, as all human beings are bound to 



xv 



