MEMBRANE-WINGED INSECTS. 277 
White Ants, § 453, on account of the difference in the 
wings, those of the latter having the characteristic net- 
work of the Neuroptera. They are distinguished from 
all the other families of the Hymenoptera by their re- 
siding under ground in large societies, some of them 
raising the earth up in mounds in constructing their 
habitations. ‘The males and females, which alone are 
winged, constitute but a small portion of each commu- 
nity, most of it consisting of wingless neuters or la- 
borers. The different parts of the nest are very curi- 
ously and regularly arranged. The males and females 
leave the nest as soon as they have wings. The males 
die, and of the females some return and deposit their 
egos In their original nest, while others go to a distance 
and found other colonies. When they begin to lay 
their eggs, as their destiny is now to stay in one place, 
they have no farther need of wings, and therefore strip 
off themselves the useless encumbrances, or allow them 
to be stripped off by the neuters. These last not only 
construct the nest, but take care of the eggs, and also of 
the grubs that are hatched from them, feeding them, and 
carrying them on clear warm days to the outer surface 
of the nest, and taking them back again when night ap- 
proaches, or before that if there be a threatening of bad 
weather. Ants are very fond of saccharine matter, and 
accordingly are apt to find out where it is. They are 
also fond of some fruits. I have been amused to see 
how any pear in my garden, that chances, in falling, to 
have a breach made in the skin, is at once beset with 
Ants, who quite rapidly eat out the inside. 
473. In most cases a community of Ants consists only 
of three kinds of individuals—males, females, and neut- 
ers. But in some of the species some of the neuters are 
larger than the rest, and differently shaped, and appear 
to be the soldiers of the community, whose duties are 
the same with those of the soldiers among the Termites 
(§ 455). There are wars, sometimes, between different 
