THE FORMIClDAi. 205 



not much education is required, and the young are soon able 

 to participate in the labours of the old. Whenever large 

 numbers of workers are born or are metamorphosed, some males 

 and females come to the light also. The workers love the old 

 house, but the males and females appear to have but one wish, 

 and that is to fly away from home as soon as possible. Some 

 do not fly very far, and when they alight, as has already been 

 noticed, the workers assist the females, and carry them to their 

 nest ; most of them, however, fly, or are carried by the wind to 

 great distances, and when they settle they form new colonies. 

 The males appear to die soon after they see their pretty com- 

 panions remorselessly snipping off their wings, and settling down 

 to a quiet humdrum life. 



It was formerly supposed that the females which alighted at a 

 great distance from their old nests returned again, but Huber, having 

 great doubts upon this subject, found that some of them after 

 having left the males, fell on to the ground in out-of-the-way 

 places, whence they could not possibly return to the original nest. 

 It was evident that either they must do something for themselves 

 or else die in obscurity. Huber observed a solitary female go down 

 into a small underground hole, take off her own wings, and 

 become, as it were, a worker ; then she constructed a small nest, 

 laid a few eggs, and brought up the larvae by acting as mother 

 and nurse at the same time. The larvae were a generation of 

 workers, and when they grew to adult age, and began to execute 

 all their usual works, from that moment the mother ant became 

 lazy, and did no more. In order to make himself doubly sure upon 

 this point this excellent naturalist imprisoned a single female ant 

 in a little cage, and observed its proceedings. It is quite evident 

 that the greater joart of the intelligence and instinct of the ants is 

 devoted to the care of their young before and during meta- 

 morphosis, and it is always interesting to notice the agitation of 

 the workers when a hole is made in a nest, and a number of 

 larvae and nymphs are exposed to daylight, or when they fall 

 from the top to the bottom of the breach. The workers im- 

 mediately rush to succour these tender little things, and the 

 first care is to carry them off to the deep passages out of sight. 

 This having been done, the reparation of the nest is thought 



