MEMBRANE-WISTGBD 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 

 eggs 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 sMn, 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 

 (§ 45S). There are Avars, sometimes, between different 



