70 ON THE HABITS OF ANTS. [LECT. 



is carried on in the dark. Again, ants are essentially 

 gregarious ; it is in some cases difficult to keep a few 

 alive by themselves in captivity, and at any rate their 

 habits under such circumstances are entirely altered. 

 If, on the other hand, a whole community be kept, then 

 the great number introduces a fresh element of difficulty 

 and complexity. Moreover, within the same species, 

 the individuals seem to differ in character, and even 

 the same individual will behave very differently under 

 different circumstances. Although,. then, ants have at- 

 tracted the attention of many naturalists, as Gould, De 

 Geer, Swammerdam, Latreille, Leeuwenhoek, and Huber, 

 and have recently been the object of interesting obser- 

 vations by Frederick Smith, Belt, Moggridge, Bates, 

 Mayr, Emery, Forel, and others, they still present one 

 of the most promising fields for observation and 

 experiment. 



The larvae of ants, like those of bees and wasps, are 

 small, white, legless grubs, somewhat conical in form, 

 narrow towards the head. They are carefully tended 

 and fed, being carried about from chamber to chamber 

 by the workers, probably in order to secure the most 

 suitable amount of warmth and moisture. I have 

 observed also that they are very often sorted according 

 to age. It is sometimes very curious in my nests to see 

 the larvae arranged in groups according to size, so that 

 they remind one of a school divided into five or six 

 classes. When full grown, they turn into pupse, some- 

 times naked, sometimes covered witli a silken cocoon, 

 constituting the so-called " ant-eggs." After remaining 

 some days in this state, they emerge as perfect insects. 

 In many cases, however, they would perish in the 



