368 AFFECTION OF INSFXTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



their full growth, they surround themselves with a silken 

 cocoon and become pupee, which, food excepted, require 

 as much attention as in the larva state. Every morning 

 they are transported from the bottom of the nest to the 

 surface, and every evening returned to their former quar- 

 ters. And if, as is often the case, the nest be thrown into 

 ruins by the unlucky foot of a passing animal, in addition 

 to all these daily and hourly avocations, is superadded 

 the immediate necessity of collecting the pupae from the 

 earth with which they have been mixed, and of restoring 

 the nest to its pristine state*. 



Nothinj; can be more curious than the view of the in- 

 terior of a fully peopled ants' nest in summer. In one 

 part are stored the eggs ; in another the pupae are heaped 

 up by hundreds in spacious apartments ; and in a third 

 we see the larvae surrounded by the workers, some of 

 which feed them, while others keep guard, standing erect 

 upon their hind legs with their abdomen elevated in the 

 position for ejaculating their acid, than which, gun- 

 powder would not be more formidable to the majority of 

 their foes. Some again are occupied in cleaning the 

 alleys from obstructions of various kinds ; and others 

 rest in perfect repose recruiting their strength for new 

 labours. 



Contrary to what is observed amongst other insects, 

 even the extrication of the young ants from the silken 



* The RiHsian shepherds ingemously avail themselves of the at- 

 tachment of ants to their young, for obtaining with little tronble a 

 collection of the pupae, which they sell as a dainty food for nightin- 

 gales. They scatter an ants' nest upon a dry plot of groimd, sur- 

 rounded with a siiallow trench of water, and place on one side of it 

 a feu- fir branches. Under these the ants, having no other alterna- 

 tive, carefully arrange all their |)np;c, and in an hour or two the shep- 

 herd finds a large heap clean and ready for market. Anderson's /fe- 

 crcatiims in Agriculture, Sfc. iv. 1 58. 



