THE FORMICIDE. 205 
not much education is required, and the young are soon able 
to participate in the labours of the old. Whenever large 
numbers of workers are born or are metamorphosed, some males 
and females come to the light also. The workers love the old 
house, but the males and females appear to have but one wish, 
and that is to fly away from home as soon as possible. Some 
do not fly very far, and when they alight, as has already been 
noticed, the workers assist the females, and carry them to their 
nest; most of them, however, fly, or are carried by the wind to 
great distances, and when they settle they form new colonies. 
The males appear to die soon after they see their pretty com- 
panions remorselessly snipping off their wings, and settling down 
to a quiet humdrum life. 
It was formerly supposed that the females which alighted ata , 
great distance from their old nests returned again, but Huber, having 
great doubts upon this subject, found that some of them after 
having left the males, fell on to the ground in out-of-the-way 
places, whence they could not possibly return to the original nest. 
It was evident that either they must do something for themselves 
or else die in obscurity. Huber observed a solitary female go down 
into a small underground hole, take off her own wings, and 
become, as it were, a worker ; then she constructed a small nest, 
laid a few eggs, and brought up the larve by acting as mother 
and nurse at the same time. The larve were a generation of 
workers, and when they grew to adult age, and began to execute 
all their usual works, from that moment the mother ant became 
lazy, and did nomore. In order to make himself doubly sure upon 
this point this excellent naturalist imprisoned a single female ant 
in a little cage, and observed its proceedings. It is quite evident 
that the greater part of the intelligence and instinct of the ants is 
devoted to the care of their young before and during meta- 
morphosis, and it is always interesting to notice the agitation of 
the workers when a hole is made in a nest, and a number of 
larve and nymphs are exposed to daylight, or when they fall 
from the top to the bottom of the breach. The workers im- 
mediately rush to succour these tender little things, and the 
first care is to carry them off to the deep passages out of sight. 
This having been done, the reparation of the nest is thought 
