87 



There is a larger and a smaller sort of winged 

 the latfer male, the former female. Those females, 

 whic h escape being devoured by other creatures, be- 

 come queens, and give birth to new colonies. 



In all other insects the loss of their^wings lessens 

 their beauty, and shortens their lives; but auts gain 

 by that loss ; this being the prelude cf their ascending 

 the throne. 



The young are fed by the juices of most sorts of 

 fruits, which the labourers extract and receive into 

 their own stomach ; where they are prepared, and af- 

 terwards transfused into the tender vermich's. 



Perhaps in warm climates, ants do not pass the 

 winter in sleep as they do with us; if so, they need a 

 store of food, which in our climate is quite needless. 

 Accordingly those who have accurately examined their 

 most numerous settlements, coald never find out any 

 reservoir of corn or other aliments. And they that 

 have carefully observed their excursions from and re- 

 turn to their colonies, could never observe that they 

 returned with any wheat com, or any other vegetable 

 *eed : though they would eagerly attack a pot of honey f 

 or ajar of sweetmeats. 



But is it not said, Prov. vi. 8. She providttk her 

 meat in the summer , and gathercth her food in the har- 

 vet? It is: but this tloes not necessarily mean any 

 more than that she collects her food in the proper sea. 

 son. Nor is any thing more declared, ch. xxx. 35, 

 than that ants carry food into their repositories : that 

 they do this against winter, is not said ; neither is it 

 true in fact. 



In England, ant-hills are formod with but little ap- 

 parent regularity. In the southern provinces of Eu- 

 rope they are constructed wilh wonderful contrivance. 

 They are generally formed in the neighbourhood of 

 some large tree and a stream of water: the one is the 

 proper place for getting food, the other for supplying 

 the animals with moisture, which they cannot well dis- 

 pense with. The shape of the ant-hill is that of a 

 sugar-loaf^ about three feet high ; 'composed of va- 



