sherwoodJ THE FOUNDER OF A CITY 



crawled to the opening. She rubbed her torn wings in a curious 

 manner against the walls and jerked her shoulders, until one wing 

 after another fell off, as if they had come unhooked. She looked 

 at them in a satisfied way, with no sign of regret. She was ful- 

 filling her instinct and the law of all queen ants. Then, with her 

 worn and partly broken mandibles, she closed the tunnel leading to 

 the sunlight and the bright garden and settled down in her tiny 

 cell. 



Here the young Queen spent the winter alone, in the dark, 

 without food or water or fresh air; while many tiny eggs were 

 forming and growing in her abdomen, fed by the fat she had stored 

 up before her wedding and by her wing muscles which she was 

 absorbing. During those long months perhaps she thought of her 

 little King who had crawled away to die after their glorious wed- 

 ding, or of her discarded bridal wings, — but I think she was only 

 half awake, peacefully waiting for spring. 



Ill 

 DWARF CHILDREN" 



When the spring came and the earth in the garden was warmed 

 by the sun until the sap began to flow up from the roots and tiny, 

 new grass blades shot up and unrolled, — the Queen seemed to come 

 to life, too, and she paced up and down her cell. A few days later 

 she laid a cluster of white eggs making, altogether, a pile no bigger, 

 than a large pin head. She looked at them with great pride and 

 licked them with her delicate tongue, and all day long she watched 

 them. Sometimes she would turn them over and wash the dirt 

 from each one, or earn- them gently to another part of the cell. 

 As the days went by the Queen grew thinner, but she never 

 stopped caring for her eggs. 



By the end of two weeks each tiny, oblong egg broke open and in 

 place of the little white pile there were thirty white ant grubs, each 

 one almost too small for you to notice. They were blind and with- 

 out legs; but they had mouths and hard little black jaws at the 

 pointed end of their long, ringed bodies, and their heads were 

 always wriggling hungrily. Their soft, white bodies were supplied 

 with tiny clumps of bristles and hooks. The Queen was very 

 proud on the day when her first ant babies were born. Each grub 

 had to be washed and brushed and carried about, and at the same 

 time thev must be fed constantlv. This was the most wonderful 



