48 ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



jaws, being directed so to do by a tap from the 

 latter's antennae. The aliment administered is be- 

 lieved to be in accordance with the age and sex, 

 the females in all probability being furnished with 

 greater liberality, and with stuff of a peculiarly 

 stimulating nature. From the enormous number of 

 mouths waiting to be fed in a well-filled ants' nest, 

 day by day and several times a day, some notion may 

 be formed of the severity of the duties and nursing 

 constitutes merely a fraction of them so successfully 

 undergone by the unselfish and untiring " workers," 

 and we cease to wonder that they display the ac- 

 tivity which is so conspicuously a trait of their 

 character. Even when the period of infancy is passed, 

 and the pupa is extracted from its silken shroud 

 and emerges perfect, nourishment is again given to 

 the new-born nursling by the nurses, who likewise 

 introduce the unused inmate to the common home 

 and work. Not only the young of the nest receive 

 attention. The foragers on their return home gorged, 

 deliver up a portion of the plunder to their less for- 

 tunate " grown-up " friends, whom indoor business 

 has compelled to remain at home. 



The above remarks apply almost equally well to 

 the feeding of the young of social bees, which differ 

 in this respect from ants, that they dwell generally 

 coiled up within narrow cells. Probably the bees 

 who particularly assume the function of nurses are 

 recruited from the ranks of the workers who are 

 only recently released from their pupal bonds. 

 Possibly the oldest workers of the hive are likewise 

 deputed to this occupation, in consequence of their 



