THE NATURALIST IN HIS BUNGALOW. 21 



labour are great, and that in combination there is strength. 

 A colony of black ants will probably consist of over 

 twenty thousand individuals. These are divided into 

 three castes or classes winged males, females which 

 are winged in earlier life, and wingless sterile females 

 or workers. The two first classes are rarely seen, for 

 the males are allowed to die after they have performed 

 their function, and the females stay always under-ground 

 in the nest and lay eggs. The ants which one observes 

 wandering about the bungalow belong to the neuter class. 

 They do all the work. They search for food and feed the 

 females, they look after the eggs and pupae, defend the 

 nest, and keep it in order. Many species of ants make 

 slaves and domesticate other insects. Lubbock has count- 

 ed no fewer than five hundred and eighty-four species of 

 crustaceans and insects which have been thus domesticated 

 by ants. From some of these the ants extract a juice just 

 as men obtain milk from cows. The intelligence of ants 

 has been vastly exaggerated. Thus Huber thought that 

 ants had a regular language. This and other assertions 

 regarding these wonderful little creatures have been proved 

 to be contrary to fact. There is now a tendency to go to 

 the opposite extreme, and deny to ants powers which they 

 really possess. Thus, because some observers saw ants 

 carrying in their mouths what they took to be food-grains, 

 but which were in reality the cocoons or pupae cases con- 

 taining the young, it has been asserted that no ants store 

 up grain. 



My own experience, however, enables me to vouch for 

 the grain carrying habits of the black ant so common in the 

 bungalow. 



In one of the ante-rooms a considerable quantity of barley 

 was one day upset on to the ground. By the next morning 

 nearly all this grain had been removed by the black ants. 

 These industrious little creatures had piled it up in the next 

 room; they had in one night removed sufficient barley to 

 make a heap nearly four inches high. 



