250 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
and have often been seen in such numbers as to alarm many 
people, who supposed some building was on fire at a dis- 
tance. 
But the closest observations have been made, and the 
most wonderful phenomena have been witnessed, when the 
ant-hills have been placed under a glass box, where all 
their movements could be distinctly watched. The high 
degree of intelligence which these little creatures display 
under such circumstances has never failed to excite the 
wonder and admiration of every observer. Looking at the 
ants through such a glass box, we see here and there a fe- 
male, accompanied by some of the workers, running along 
dropping her eggs, which are immediately taken up by her 
attendants and carried away. These eggs are of an oval 
form, milk-white, very small, and opaque; but by-and-by 
they become larger, growing like the eggs of the gall-wasp, 
and then they become transparent, when a black spot may 
be seen in the centre of each, which is the embryo of the 
future ant. These eggs will all dry up and perish if the 
workers are removed; for, in order to be developed, they 
must be continually moistened with the saliva of the work- 
er; and so, even in insect life, the sweat of the laborer be- 
comes the source of plenty and prosperity. With this nour- 
ishing care the eggs teem with life, and in about two weeks 
the maggot is hatched, which is transparent, but without 
feet or antenne. 
The ants are proverbially an industrious race, and when 
the first rays of the morning sun fall upon the ant-hill those 
that are on the outside run hastily within, rousing the slum- 
berers, touching all those that are inside the hill with their 
antenne, pressing and pushing them until the whole popu- 
lation.is in motion. The lazy ones and those that move 
too slow are seized with the jaws and carried up to the top 
of the hill, as well as the maggots and pupz of the nurser- 
ies, where they are all exposed to the sun’s rays about a 
