250 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



and have often been seen in such numbers as to alarm many 

 people, who supposed some building was on fire at a dis- 

 tance. 



But the closest observations have been made, and the 

 most wonderful phenomena have been witnessed, when the 

 ant-hills have been placed under a glass box, where all 

 their movements could be distinctly watched. The high 

 degree of intelligence which these little creatures display 

 under such circumstances has never failed to excite the 

 wonder and admiration of every observer. Looking at the 

 ants through such a glass box, we see here and there a fe- 

 male, accompanied by some of the workers, running along 

 dropping her eggs, which are immediately taken up by her 

 attendants and carried away. These eggs are of an oval 

 form, milk-white, very small, and opaque ; but by-and-by 

 they become larger, growing like the eggs of the gall-wasp, 

 and then they become transparent, when a black spot may 

 be seen in the centre of each, which is the embryo of the 

 future ant. These eggs will all dry up and perish if the 

 workers are removed ; for, in order to be developed, they 

 must be continually moistened with the saliva of the work- 

 er ; and so, even in insect life, the sweat of the laborer be- 

 comes the source of plenty and prosperity. With this nour- 

 ishing care the eggs teem with life, and in about two weeks 

 the maggot is hatched, which is transparent, but without 

 feet or antennae. 



The ants are proverbially an industrious race, and when 

 the first rays of the morning sun fall upon the ant-hill those 

 that are on the outside run hastily within, rousing the slum- 

 berers, touching all those that are inside the hill with their 

 antennae, pressing and pushing them until the whole popu- 

 lation is in motion. The lazy ones and those that move 

 too slow are seized with the jaws and carried up to the top 

 of the hill, as well as the maggots and pupas of the nurser- 

 ies, where they are all exposed to the sun's rays about a 



