IfATURE'S CRAFTSMEN" 



CHAPTER I 

 THE ROYAL MOTHER OF ANTS 



" TTTHAT kind of ants are flying ants?" This ques- 

 T T tion is often asked by persons who fancy that 

 there is a distinct species of ants that have wings. Most 

 known ants are "flying ants" in their ancestral origin. 

 The males and females are born with wings, which the 

 males keep until death, and the females soon lose. In- 

 deed, the females deliberately unwing themselves by di- 

 vers contortions of the body, strokes of the feet, twist- 

 ing of the wings, and rubbing against near-by objects. 

 That nature-gift which we call instinct, that teaches 

 wasps and bees to keep their wings, which they will 

 need in their mode of life, prompts the mother-ant to 

 put off her wings as useless appendages in her under- 

 ground and flightless career.^ 



A complete formicary contains one or more fertile 

 queens, workers of two or more castes, and young males 

 and females. The last are sometimes called "virgin 

 queens," for they are the predestined royal mothers of 

 ants. Both sexes are carefully attended by workers of 



* Some ant genera, however, are truly apterous, as Eciton, Dory' 

 luK, Leptogenys, and Tomognathus. 



