230 NATURE-STUDY 



killed. The silk fibre is then unravelled and reeled into 

 skeins, is spun into thread, then woven into cloth, and 

 dyed or left natural. 



This is a profitable subject for a nature lesson in connection 

 with geography, when a silk-producing country is being 

 studied. The lesson should be well illustrated with silk, 

 cloth, thread, floss, pictures of the insect in different stages, 

 and if possible some real cocoons. 



Professor V. L. Kellogg, of Leland Stanford University, 

 CaHfornia, kindly agrees to send any teacher several dozen 

 eggs of the Chinese Silk-moth for five cents. Children would 

 be delighted to watch the development of the eggs and cater- 

 pillars. Eggs and cocoons may also be got from Mrs. Carrie 

 Wilhams, San Diego, Cal., and from the Division of Ento- 

 mology, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington. 



Though the Ants may be sometimes troublesome in pan- 

 tries and on the lawns, on the whole we generally consider 

 them with a kindly interest. They have a community life 

 similar to that of the bees. This and their intelligent ways of 

 managing the colony, and many other interesting habits 

 make ants an entertaining subject of study. 



There are queens, males, and workers in the colony. Ants, 

 like the bees, belong to the Hymenoptera (Membrane- 

 winged). The workers have no wings, but the queens and 

 males do. In the summer one may often see the winged queens 

 and males swarming, generally about some tree, during the 

 mating. After the mating the queen returns to the nest. Often 

 her wings are then pulled off by the workers or herself, and she 

 settles down to the business of laying eggs to increase the 

 population of the colony. The winged forms may often be 

 seen in disturbing some ant-hill, or overturning a stone under 



