THE ANT. 177 



communities of more temperate climes. The ant of the 

 villa garden and the red ant of the woods are but very 

 ignorant savages compared with the termite, for while the 

 one inhabits caves and tunnels in the ground, and the other 

 rough huts, thatched with the spines of the fir, the white ant 

 dwells in a palace far larger in proportion to its size than the 

 abodes of the most powerful monarchs of the human race 

 to that of their inhabitants. 



It is not only man who may with advantage take lessons 

 from the ant ; the domestic hen would do well in one 

 respect to imitate it. The white ant lays eighty-six thousand 

 eggs a day throughout the season an amount that may 

 well cause the hen to be ashamed of her miserable total of 

 three or four eggs a week. It is by no means improbable 

 that the partiality of all birds for the pupae of ants is less 

 due to a gastronomic liking for them, than to spite at the 

 superior fecundity of the ant. There would be a great 

 future opened to the farmer if our scientific men could but 

 discover some method of producing a bird which would be 

 a combination of the domestic hen with the ant, uniting the 

 size and tranquil habits of the one with something of the 

 fecundity of the other. We should not demand the full 

 tale of eighty thousand eggs a day ; but even were that 

 amount divided by a thousand, the result would still be 

 satisfactory. The collection and packing of the eggs would 

 furnish employment to the juvenile rural population, and 

 eggs would become the commonest and cheapest of all 

 diets. There is a book already in existence that gives 

 instructions for cooking eggs in a hundred different ways. 

 Doubtless many fresh methods would be discovered in 

 preparing the abundant and nourishing food that would 



W.L.-VIl. 12 



