ABIDING CITIES 183 



on to stage two, which is the floor here reserved 

 for the nursery of the hatched-out grubs or larvae. 

 In this second stage you see a chamber with a 

 group of such grubs, all hungry and greedy, wait- 

 ing for their nurses to bring them food from outside 

 the household. Observe the obvious expectancy of 

 their attitude, with heads held up, like that of small 

 birds clamouring eagerly for food when their mother 

 approaches them with a worm or a caterpillar. 

 After feeding for some time in this legless, grub- 

 bish condition, the larva turns into a pupa, and 

 encloses itself in a cocoon. One larva has just com- 

 pleted this happy transformation, and a watchful 

 nurse ant is therefore at this moment engaged in 

 carrying it tenderly a stage lower down to the floor 

 reserved for the chrysalis condition. On the third 

 floor, below, you see a group of pupae lying by in 

 the dark, and awaiting their development. The 

 wall of one cocoon has here been removed, and 

 within you may catch a glimpse of the imprisoned 

 grub, now .recently transformed into the adult ant 

 pattern. Of course, the nest contains many hun- 

 dreds of such tunnelled galleries, all teeming with 

 life, and all made up of several distinct chambers. 

 Now, how does such a nest begin to be ? Well, 

 it starts from a queen, or perfect female, who sets 

 out with a few others to form a colony. This 

 colony soon grows, but it is rather a republic than 

 an Amazon kingdom, like the hive of bees or the 

 nest of wasps. It is composed of several perfect 

 females (instead of one queen), numerous imper- 

 fect females or workers, and a few males, who, as 



