THE CLEVER FAMILY OF ANTS 6i 



By the time the baby has grown large enough so 

 that he can be watched without a magnifying 

 glass, he is fed a whole ball of mushroom at one 

 time, and he may have to beg from two or three 

 nurses before he is satisfied. After he is fed, the 

 nurses pay no more attention to him until he 

 pouts again. 



It may be from two to four months before the 

 ant baby has changed into a full-grown ant with 

 a dark, hard, leggy body in place of the soft 

 white one he started out with. All this time the 

 workers take care of him. They feed and clean 

 him, carry off food he has not eaten, cocoons he 

 has climbed out of, and all the odds and ends 

 that might make the nest unpleasant to live in. 



When he is grown he seems to know without 

 being told that he must get to work helping with 

 the food and the babies, or bringing in leaves, or 

 defending the nest from enemies, according to 

 whether he is a big or Httle worker or a soldier. 



The Attas are one kind of ants, but there are 

 as many kinds as there are nations and tribes of 

 people. When I made the spike ladder up the 

 sand-box tree I remembered that there were ants 

 that bit and stung. One of my friends who 

 climbed a tree in the South American forest met 

 a colony of stinging ants seventy feet up the 

 tree and was glad to get down from his ladder 

 as fast as he could, and not attempt to climb 

 back again. 



