ANALYSIS. xxi 



others in the social scale. All are useful, all are equal, 

 all are brothers and sisters — the offspring of what may be 

 called the parental department. But no personal love or 

 friendships exist among them ; they care no more for each 

 other, except as representing individual fractions of the 

 community, than one part of a vegetable growth cares for 

 another — the branch for the twig or the twig for the leaf. 

 Like some tribes of Indians, they kill off without pity or 

 remorse all helplessly aged or useless individuals ; even 

 their common mothers are, we are assured, sacrificed when 

 too old to be of further use ; and they ruthlessly expel from 

 the community their non-working brothers and sisters 

 who have grown to be perfect males and females, and, al- 

 though the objects of the greatest solicitude and tenderest 

 care up to the period of their expulsion, their welfare 

 ceases from that moment to be of the slightest concern to 

 any member of the community. 



Looked at as a citizen of a republic with peculiar laws 

 and customs, the little communities of ants to be every- 

 where found become as interesting as strange tribes of 

 men in distant countries ; and as nothing prevents the stu- 

 dent from personally investigating their manners and cus- 

 toms, it is quite possible that no book yet published can tell 

 him what he may find out for himself. 



As detailed a description as the limits of this little book 

 allow has been given of the wonderful cliff-dwellings in 

 the southwestern part of the United States, but many in- 

 teresting questions with regard to the people who once 

 lived in them have been necessarily passed without notice. 

 The whole subject is intensely interesting, and has been 

 treated at length in magazines and G-overnment reports. 

 It is within the bounds of possibility that some who read 

 these words have visited these most interesting ruins, or 

 may at some future day do so, and the author of the pres- 

 ent volume will feel that he has accomplished a most use- 

 ful work if he succeeds in awakening in any boy's or girl's 



