138 HISTORY OF 



fully defended from cold and moisture. We are 

 not to suppose, that those white substances which 

 we so plentifully find in every ant-hill, are the 

 eggs as newly laid. On the contrary, the ant's 

 egg is so very small, that, though laid upon a 

 black ground, it can scarcely be discerned. The 

 little white bodies we see are the young animals 

 in their maggot state, endued with life, long since 

 freed from the egg, and often involved in a cone, 

 which it has spun round itself, like the silk-worm. 

 The real egg, when laid, if viewed through a 

 microscope, appears smooth, polished, and shin- 

 ing, while the maggot is seen composed of twelve 

 rings, and is often larger than the ant itself. 



It is impossible to express the fond attachment 

 which the working ants show to their rising pro- 

 geny. In cold weather they take them in their 

 mouths, but without offering them the smallest in- 

 jury, to the very depths of their habitation, where 

 they are less subject to the severity of the season. 

 In a fine day they remove them with the same 

 care nearer the surface, where their maturity 

 may be assisted by the warm beams of the sun. 

 If a formidable enemy should come to batter 

 down their whole habitation, and crush them by 

 thousands in the ruin, yet these wonderful insects, 

 still mindful of their parental duties, make it their 

 first care to save their offspring. They are seen 

 running wildly about, and different ways, each 

 loaded with a young one, often bigger than the 

 insect that supports it. " I have kept," says 

 Swammerdam, " several of the working ants in 

 my closet with their young, in a glass filled with 



