132 CONVERSATIONS ON 



begins, if you watch the brown ants, you may 

 see them come out of the ground in great 

 numbers ; and then running in again, they 

 will soon return, each one with a little piece 

 of dirt in his mouth, which he puts down 

 upon the roof of the nest. A gentleman who 

 watched them very closely* says, that at first 

 he could not think what this was done for, but 

 at last he saw little walls begin to rise up 

 with spaces left between them. In some 

 places pillars were begun, placed at regular 

 distances, and he knew that these were to 

 support ceilings ; so he found out that they 

 were going to build another story to their 

 house, and they were laying the foundations." 



" How I should have liked to see them, 

 Uncle Philip. I would not have cared for the 

 rain." 



" Ah, I see you are fit to be a naturalist. 

 You know what that word means, do you 

 not ?" 



" It means, Uncle Philip, a man who loves 

 to study about the animals and insects, does 

 it not ?" 



" It means a man or a woman either, boys ? 

 who loves to study the things in nature no 



* Mr. Huber the younger. 



