56 MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON 
a considerable variety of substances, with a very marked 
preference for those of a saccharine nature. Nobody yet 
seems to know what food the queen mother gets in a state 
of nature when “suckling” the young one; but she feeds 
it with some nutritive juice, and by much the same method 
as that adopted by pigeons in the case of the early stages 
of their young. This kind of work goes on for a month, 
by which time the larva is “full-fed” and changes into 
the stage of pupa. Even in this half-animate state the 
young ones require close attention to warmth, light, 
moisture, etc., quite as much as the eggs do. 
The pupa stage extends from about three weeks to four, 
according to the temperature and local conditions. At the 
end of this time the young ant is hatched. It is usually, 
and normally, a “neuter,’ or worker ant. Queen ants 
appear to be developed only under certain special conditions, 
which at present seem to be but imperfectly understood, 
and may be under the control of the workers, as in the case of 
Bees. The origin of the male ants will be considered later 
on. It is stated that the queen ant may go on laying fertile 
eggs in this way, every summer, for at least eight years— 
a very remarkable fact, it will be generally admitted. She 
is usually the mother of all the worker ants proper to her 
household. 
With the birth of the first worker ant, if new duties 
arise for the queen, it may be said that her former 
domestic duties no longer increase in proportion to the 
number of the colony. Every few hours additional helpers 
arise, and it is certain that one by one these take over 
much of the work that has been previously carried on 
by the queen alone. It is not only the wants of the rising 
generation that have to be attended to—and there is much 
to be done in the way of keeping the house and the young 
ones clean and well-fed—but there is mason work to be 
done, and a host of other duties, whose number and variety 
increase with the growth of the family. How the queen 
ant manages to educate the young ones nobody yet knows, 
and perhaps nobody ever will. But educated they are, 
in some way. It is supposed that the young worker ants 
go through a systematic course of instruction, beginning 
