ABOUT ANTS. 



are very precious to them because they contain 

 their children. If the air is damp and cold, or 

 the rain falls, they carry them down into the 

 lower rooms, and keep them w^arm. If the sun 

 is warm and. bright, they are brought where 

 the warmth may be felt, without making them 

 too dry. If they happen to be exposed, we 

 have seen how they are hurried to a place of 

 safety. If you should carefully dig down into 

 the earth, you would find the underground city 

 very extensive, the long, winding galleries lying 

 tier after tier beneath each other, and leading 

 to large apartments, where the ants and their 

 children find room. 



Three kinds of ants come out of these cocoon- 

 sacks. There are males, which have four 

 wings ; females, which are much larger, and 

 have two wings; and a third kind, called work- 

 ers, or nurse-ants, which have no wings. After 

 midsummer the several kinds may often be 

 seen very busy about an ant hill, the winged 

 ants trying to get away, and the workers bring- 

 ing them back as often as they can find them 



