8 PUPA— IMAGO. 



selves, carefully unfolding their legs and smoothing 

 out the wings, with truly feminine tenderness and 

 delicacy. Our countryman Grould was the first to 

 observe, and the fact has since been fully confirmed 

 by Forel, that the pupge are unable to emerge from the 

 cocoons without the assistance of the workers. The 

 ants generally remain from three to four weeks in 

 this condition. 



In the case of ants, as with other insects which pass 

 through similar metamoq^hoses, such as bees, wasps, 

 moths, butterflies, flies, and beetles, &c., the larval 

 stage is the period of growth. During the chrysalis 

 stage, though immense changes take place, and the 

 organs of the perfect insect are more or less rapidly 

 developed, no food is taken, and there is no addition 

 to the size or weight. 



The imago or perfect insect again takes food, but 

 does not grow. The ant, like all the insects above 

 named, is as large when it emerges from the pupa as it 

 ever will be ; excepting, indeed, that the abdomen of 

 the females sometimes increases in size from the de- 

 velopment of the eggs. 



We have hitherto very little information as to the 

 length of life in ants in the imago, or perfect, state. 

 So far, indeed, as the preparatory stages are concerned, 

 there is little difficulty in approximately ascertaining 

 the facts ; namely, that while in summer they take 

 only a few weeks ; in some species, as our small yellow 

 meadow ants, the autumn larvse remain with compara- 



