NATURE STUDY LESSONS. 235 



exchanges and securing those known to exist in other 

 parts of the world ; but it is possible for anj^ boy or girl to 

 make a good beginning in a single summer. Many of 

 them are unable to inflict any injury, but the bees and 

 wasps can sting severely and must, of course, be handled 

 with great care. It is better that very small children 

 should not handle them at all. Even the most experi- 

 enced collector will not infrequently find himself taken un- 

 awares. 



The ants are nearly all too small to be placed in a col- 

 lection without careful mounting by an expert, and they 

 are, moreover, so difficult to classify that it is generally 

 better for young people to watch them as they roam about, 

 or observe them in their nests, and leave them alone. 

 There is one large species, however, the Carpenter Ant, 

 found in wood, which is large enough to be pinned in a 

 collection. 



Most ants are wingless, but every species has some 

 members which grow wings and fly about for a day or two. 

 They then bite their wings off close to the body and find a 

 place to make a nest. The Carpenter Ants fly in spring 

 or early summer, and it is easy to have both the winged 

 and the wingless kinds in one collection. Such ants as 

 may be large enough to pin and mount should be placed 

 by themselves and labelled Formicidse, which is the fami- 

 ly name of the typical and most common species of ants. 



Everyone knows the bees, but comparatively few people 

 have any idea how many kinds of bees there are. They 

 are very numerous and of all sizes, from that of the big, 

 blundering bumble-bee, which has a home and a family in 

 some deserted nest of the field mouse, to the tiny Halic- 

 tus, sometimes only one-hundredth of an inch in length. 

 They are to be found about flowers all summer, busily 

 gathering the nectar and the pollen. Some are social, 

 that is, live and work together, as the bumble-bee and 



