Ants 



in decaying wood in fact, no situation may be said to be 

 wholly unsuitable for a nest if the right kind of ant is at 

 hand to make use of it. With few exceptions, the general 

 life of one community is very similar to that of any other. 

 At the end of her nuptial flight, the mated queen returns 

 to her hiding-place, below ground if she belongs to an 

 earth-frequenting kind, and her first care is to rid herself 

 of her wings, which henceforth will be useless to her. The 

 offending encumbrances are either pulled off with her legs 

 and jaws, or rubbed against stones, grass blades and the 

 like, till they break away. Having performed this surgical 

 operation, which, in reality, is not very difficult, for the 

 wings easily break away after their one flight, the queen, 

 whose body is well stored with fat, proceeds to found her 

 colony by herself. She makes a little burrow in the soil 

 and enlarges the blind end into a chamber and, having 

 done so, she closes the entrance. This engineering feat 

 costs the ant much tribulation ; she wears away her jaws, 

 with which she excavates the soil, rubs the hairs from 

 her body and, at length, with scratched and bruised 

 armour, she settles down unaccompanied and lonely, in 

 her little chamber for days, weeks or even months, till 

 her eggs are ready to be laid. 



At length the eggs are deposited in a little packet, and 

 from them very small grubs emerge. These new-comers 

 are nourished by the saliva of the queen, which, in turn, 

 is derived from the fat stored in her body, for she takes 

 no food during the whole of the time she is founding her 

 colony. They grow slowly and little, but, mishaps aside, 

 they eventually develop into undersized workers, whose 

 first care is to break a way into the outer air and proceed 

 with the enlargement of the nest. But let us first of all 

 follow the fortunes of the queen. The newly hatched 

 workers bring her food, but she takes little interest in her 

 progeny ; at their birth she becomes excessively timid 

 and shuns the light, her sole care is to produce more and 

 more,eggs. She laps the liquid food which her attendants 



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