ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 65 



care and woi-k are requisite for the complete rearing of each 

 individual ant. 



The workers lick the larvae almost ceaselessly, clean them 

 if they get soiled with earth, and, when needful, carry them 

 about as they do the eggs, to the different parts of the nest. 

 The larvae are also occasionally taken out in distinct groups, 

 separated by the older and larger, so that one is involun- 

 tarily reminded of a school, witli divided classes of elders. 



" Nothing is more interesting," says Blanchard, " than to 

 watch the ceaseless care of the ants for their larvae. They 

 clean them by rubbing or brushing them with their man- 

 dibular palpi ; in the mornings they carry them to the upper 

 parts of the nests, in order that they may enjoy the pleasant 

 warmth, while, later in the day, they shelter them in the 

 lower rooms from the burning rays of the sun. These 

 carryings up and down are repeated as often as is required 

 by atmospheric changes. It is surprising to see the tender 

 care with which the ants carry the soft and easily injured 

 bodies of the larvae between their hard horny jaws. An 

 accident never happens to them, they are never crushed, nor 

 wounded, nor knocked against the hard walls of the long 

 tunnels of the nest." 



When the larvae are grown, which is during the summer 

 or in the following spring, they spin themselves a cocoon 

 for the change into regular ants, and are then called pupae, 

 nymphae, or popularly, " ant-eggs." Their egg-like ap- 

 pearance and clear smooth outside make most people incor- 

 rectly regard them as the real eggs of the ant. They are 

 very much sought after, as they are the chief ingredient in 

 the food of caged warblers. 



The nymphae need no food, but are carried about like 

 the larvae by the workers, licked, cleaned, and exposed in 

 heaps in front of the nest on fine days to the heat and light. 

 When the sunrays fall on the nest, the ants outside, the 

 sentries, give a signal to those within, and the workers inside 

 quickly carry the pupae and larvae on to the surface of the 

 nest, and later carry them in again, first to the upper story, 

 where it is still warm. They pull along the large white 

 shapeless things, holding them in their strong jaws, " like 

 cats their kittens," and try to defend them at the sacrifice 

 of their own lives against the marauders from foreign ant- 

 colonies as will be hereafter described or to save them 



