574 INSTINCTS OF ANTS. 



constructed, that of containing the larvae and pupae at certain 

 hours of the day. The eggs, when deposited by the female or 

 queen ant (who drops them at random in her progress through 

 the nest), are taken charge of by the workers ; who immediately 

 seize them and carry them in their mouths, in small parcels, 

 and lay them in heaps in separate apartments. They constantly 

 tend them until they are hatched, incessantly turning them back- 

 wards and forwards with their tongues for the purpose of mois- 

 tening them, without which they would come to nothing ; and 

 it must be to the moisture thus imparted to them, that the great 

 enlargement of the eggs is due, which has been constantly noticed 

 previously to the hatching of the larvae. The workers frequently 

 remove the eggs from one quarter of the nest to another, as they 

 require a warmer or a cooler, a moister or a drier atmosphere ; 

 and at intervals they brood over them, as if to impart to them 

 a genial warmth. When the larvae come forth, the workers are 

 almost constantly engaged in supplying their wants and forward- 

 ing their growth. Every evening, an hour before sunset, they 

 regularly remove the whole brood (as well as the eggs and pupae) 

 to cells situated lower down in the earth, where they will be safe 

 from cold ; and in the morning they as constantly remove them 

 again towards the surface of the nest, unless there is a prospect 

 of cold or wet weather, in which case they do not remove them. 

 When the rays of the sun first strike upon the nest, a most ani- 

 mated scene takes place. The Ants on the exterior are the first 

 to feel the influence of the warmth ; they enter the nest, run 

 along the avenues and galleries to the various chambers, and 

 communicate the intelligence to every ant they meet, tapping 

 their fellows gently with their antennae, or, if this be not attended 

 to, biting them severely with their mandibles. At last the whole 

 colony seems to partake of the excitement, and each labourer 

 then carefully takes a larva or a pupa in his mouth, conveys it 

 through all the winding passages to the outside, and places it in 

 such a position as to receive the rays of the sun. The larvae and 

 pupae are seldom exposed to the full rays of the sun for a longer 

 period than fifteen or twenty minutes ; they are then conveyed 

 into little cells constructed on the exterior of the nest purposely to 

 receive them, and are protected from the too great heat of the 

 sun's rays, by a slight covering of chaff, stubble, or other light 

 matter. As the heat of the sun decreases in the afternoon, the 

 larvae and pupae are again fully exposed to it for a short season 

 as before, and are then carefully returned one by one, through the 

 almost interminable passages, each into the identical chamber 



