Hillside. 157 



nest to build up a larger structure ; then a larger number 

 of eggs are laid, corresponding to the increased size of the 

 nest, and so the process goes on, until at last nests of the size 

 of the one we are watching, with millions of inhabitants, are 

 produced. A female ant has been known to lay as many as 

 5,000 eggs. Sir John Lubbock, our greatest authority on 

 ants, states that the larvse often appear to be sorted out ac- 

 cording to age, and their appearance, collected in groups of 

 different sizes, reminds one of a school divided into classes. 

 As we carefully pull away some of the material forming the 

 top of the nest, observe the galleries, the rooms, the pathways. 

 But matters are beginning to look serious ; millions of ants 

 crowd to the point of assault ; and see, they are carrying 

 away little silken masses in their mouths. These are the 

 cocoons in which are pupse which will, in their turn, change 

 to ants, and on which the future state of the colony depends. 

 How rapidly the workers catch hold of the little silken bags 

 in their mouths and disappear into the uninjured parts of the 

 nest, never stopping until they have removed them to a 

 place of safety ; and even when a part of the nest has been 

 irretrievably ruined, when the dtlbris looks nothing but a 

 seething, struggling mass of life, when millions of these tiny 

 creatures have been thrown into what appears to be irretriev- 

 able confusion, the workers securely hold on to these pupae, 

 and disappear with them almost as if by magic. 



The way in which ants look after these silken cocoons 

 probably gave rise to the supposition that ants stored up 

 grain for the winter, the cocoons bearing some distant 

 resemblance to grains of corn. They are now very generally 

 though erroneously called ants' eggs, and as such are fre- 

 quently collected and sold as food for poultry. But at the 



