58 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP. 
as those of some insects. Among these the 
Hive Bees, from the beauty and regularity 
of their cells, from their utility to man, and 
from the debt we owe them for their uncon- 
scious agency in the improvement of flowers, 
hold a very high place; but they are prob- 
ably less intelligent, and their relations with 
other animals and with one another are less 
complex than in the case of Ants, which have 
been so well studied by Gould, Huber, Forel, 
M‘Cook, and other naturalists. 
The subject is a wide one, for there are at 
least a thousand species of Ants, no two of 
which have the same habits. In this country 
we have rather more than thirty, most of 
which I have kept in confinement. Their life 
is comparatively long: I have had working 
Ants. which were seven years old, and a Queen 
Ant lived in one of my nests for fifteen years. 
The community consists, in addition to the 
young, of males, which do no work, of wingless 
workers, and one or more Queen mothers, who 
have at first wings, which, however, after one 
Marriage flight, they throw off, as they never 
leave the nest again, and in it wings would of 
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