24 TIIK STORY-BOOK OF SCIENCE 



themselves, until the paunch is emptied. The milk- 

 ant then departs to fill up its can again. 



"Now, you can imagine that, to feed by the beak- 

 l n 1 a crowd of workers who cannot go themselves for 

 victuals, one milk-ant is not enough; there must be a 

 host of them. And then, under the ground, in the 

 warm dormitories, there is another population of 

 hungry ones. They are the young ants, the family, 

 the hope of the city. I must tell you that ants, as 

 well as other insects, hatch from an egg, like birds. ' ' 



"One day," interposed Emile, "I lifted up a stone 

 and saw a lot of little white grains that the ants has- 

 tened to carry away under the ground. ' ' 



"Those white grains were eggs," said Uncle Paul, 

 "which the ants had brought up from the bottom of 

 their dwelling to expose them under the stone to the 

 heat of the sun and facilitate their hatching. They 

 hurried to descend again, when the stone was raised, 

 so as to put them in a safe place, sheltered from 

 danger. 



"On coming out from the egg, the ant has not the 

 form that you know. It is a little white worm, with- 

 out feet, and quite powerless, not even able to move. 

 There are in an ant-hill thousands of those little 

 worms. Without stop or rest, the ants go from one 

 to another, distributing a beakful, so that they begin 

 to grow and change in one day into ants. I leave you 

 to think how much they must work and how many 

 plant-lice must be milked, merely to nurse the little 

 ones that fill the dormitories." 



