40 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



will behave very differently under different circumstances. Although, 

 then, ants have attracted the attention of many naturalists Gould, 

 Ue Geer, Swammerdam, Latreille, Leeuwenhoeck, Huber and have 

 recently been the object of interesting observations by Frederick 

 Smith, Belt, Moggridge, Bates, Mayr, Emery, Forel, and others, they 

 still present one of the most promising fields for observation and ex- 

 periment. 



The larvse of ants, like those of bees and wasps, are small, white, 

 legless grubs, somewhat conical in form, being narrower toward the 

 head. They are carefully tended and fed, being carried about from 

 chamber to chamber by the workers, probably in order to secure the 

 most suitable amount of warmth and moisture. I have observed 

 also that they are very often sorted according to age. It is some- 

 times very curious in my nests to see them divided into groups ac- 

 cording to size, so that they remind one of a school divided into five 

 or six classes. When full grown they turn into pupre, sometimes 

 naked, sometimes covered with a silken cocoon, constituting the so- 

 called "ant-eggs." After remaining some days in this state, they 

 emerge as perfect insects. In many cases, however, they would per- 

 ish in the attempt, if they were not assisted, and it is very pretty 

 to see the older ants helping them to extricate themselves, carefully 

 unfolding their legs and smoothing out the wings, with truly femi- 

 nine tenderness and delicacy. 



Under ordinary circumstances an ants' nest, like a beehive, consists 

 of three kinds of individuals : workers, or imperfect females (which 

 constitute the great majority), males, and perfect females. There 

 are, however, often several females in an ants' nest ; while, as we 

 all know, there is never more than one queen in a hive. The queens 

 have wings, but after a single flight they tear off their own wings, 

 and do not again quit the nest. In addition to the ordinary workers 

 there is in some species a second, or rather a third, form of female. 

 In almost any ants' nest we may see that the workers differ more or 

 less in size. The amount of difference, however, depends upon the 

 species. In Lasius tiiger, the small. brown garden ant, the workers 

 are, for instance, much more uniform than in the little yellow 

 meadow ant, or in Atta barbara, where some of them are more than 

 twice as large as others. But in certain ants there are differences 

 still more remarkable. Thus, in a Mexican species, besides the com- 

 mon workers, which have the form of ordinary neuter ants, there arc 

 certain others in which the abdomen is swollen into an immense sub- 

 diaphanous sphere. These individuals are very inactive, and prin- 

 cipally occupied in elaborating a kind of honey.' In the genus J'hei- 

 dole very common in Southern Europe there are also two dis- 

 tinct forms Avithout any intermediate gradations : one with heads of 

 the usual proportion, and a second with immense heads provided 



* Westwood, " Modern Classification of Insects," vol. ii., p. 225. 



