1 82 FLASHLIGHTS ON NATURE 



beneath the hillock, but also all round it, for 

 wherever you step the soil treads soft, and gives 

 beneath your foot to a depth of six or eight inches. 

 This illustrative example is a city built by the com- 

 mon Wood Ant. I have had another just like it 

 an insect London under observation for three 

 or four years in a copse on a spur of Hind Head, 

 not far from my cottage. 



In No. 2 Mr. Knock has represented for us, with 

 his usual skill, a very small section of such a city, 

 " all a-growing and a-blowing," all engaged in 

 the active exercise of its everyday functions. How 

 it came into being, and how it is ruled and peopled, 

 I will tell you a little later on ; for the present, I 

 want first to familiarise you with the general course 

 of its domestic economy in practical action. We 

 have here an interior view, with one wall removed, 

 of a tunnel or gallery, which runs through the soft 

 upper portion of the nest, composed of pine- 

 needles ; together with a small piece of the outer 

 surface. An ant, which has been out foraging for 

 food, approaches one of the mouths of the nest. 

 Beneath are three successive floors or stages of the 

 tunnel, with excavated chambers, each appropriated 

 to its own particular purpose. In the upper floor 

 of all, we see two groups of minute eggs awaiting 

 their hatching. These are the real eggs, not the 

 much larger things sold as " ants' eggs " for bird 

 food in London, which are really the pupae. Four 

 of the eggs have just arrived at hatching point ; 

 therefore, one of the careful nurses who look after 

 them is seen just in the act of bundling them over 



