ORDER VI. VEIN-WINGED INSECTS. 247 



place to another with their large jaws, the instruments with 

 which they perform all their work. The maggot is white, 

 without feet, has a l:;-rny, brown head, and is fed like a lit- 

 tle bird by a worker, and after a few weeks' growth spins a 

 white cocoon. 



All ants are benumbed during the winter, and lie im- 

 movable in their subterranean abodes, without taking any 

 kind of food. In the summer, however, their food is very 

 various. They eat all kinds of fruit, dead as well as living 

 insects, sugar, honey, and other sweet juices, principally 

 that of plant-lice, called honey-dew, which exudes from their 

 bodies without doing them any injury. Plant-lice, on this 

 account, were called by Reaumure, " the milch-cows of the 

 ants ;" and to ascertain their abodes in the trees it is only 

 necessary to follow the march of the ants, who will climb 

 to the top of the highest tree in search of their beloved 

 friends, whom they caress in the most affectionate manner, 

 sucking the honey-dew from their bodies without harming 

 them in the least, although they will attack and devour 

 every other kind of insect, even the largest caterpillars. 

 This honey-dew, of which the ants are so fond, is nothing 

 but the digested vegetable juices, which are continually ex- 

 haled by the plant-lice. 



As has already been intimated, ants are not only her- 

 bivorous but also carnivorous, and almost any kind of ani- 

 mal food is palatable to them. If a small dead animal for 

 instance, a mouse or a rat, a frog or a lizard be put into 

 one of their ant-hills, it will be converted by them into a 

 very well-prepared skeleton in less than twenty-four hours ; 

 but if it remain longer, it will fall to pieces, leaving only 

 the bones, because the ants will eat up even the ligaments 

 and cartilages. 



White, oval bodies, resembling barley seeds, are found 

 in the ant-hills during the summer, which have sometimes, 

 and now arc by the common people called ant-eggs, which 



