OTHER INSECTS OF SPECIAL INTEREST 223 
and it is usually far more convenient to observe them. There 
are many kinds of ants, differing more or less in appearance 
and in habits, but all of them are social beings, living to- 
gether in colonies like ordinary bees and wasps. 
Each colony of ants, like those of the honeybees, con- 
sists of three classes of individuals: males, females or queens, 
and workers. The workers are by far the most numerous. 
They are wingless, while the males and females have wings 
and use them especially for their wedding journey. After 
this flight is over, the males soon die and the females tear 
off their own wings and lay 
their eggs, starting a new 
colony or being adopted by 
another colony. 
The eggs of ants are so 
small that they usually es- 
cape notice. What are.often 
called “eggs ”’ are the co- 
coons; these are the whitish 
egg-shaped bodies that may 
be seen when we stir up an ant’s nest. The larve are whitish 
also, but are readily distinguished from the cocoons, as they 
are smaller and are not motionless. _ 
The workers are the most interesting. They do all the 
work and show wonderful intelligence — building and de- 
fending the nest, feeding the colony, caring for the eggs, the 
larve, and the cocoons, and showing the most tender de- 
votion to the queen or mother. But the most wonderful 
of all is their relation to plant lice. As ants are fond of sweets 
and like to feed upon the honey-dew given off by plant lice, 
they often secure a colony of these lice and keep them and 
care for them as we do a herd of milch cows. 
Brack ANTS 
The one at the left is in the winged stage. 
