AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 365 



New and more severe labours succeed the birth of the 

 young grubs which are disclosed from the eggs after a 

 few days. The working ants are now almost without re- 

 mission engaged in supplying their wants and forwarding 

 their growth. Every evening an hour before sunset they 

 regularly remove the whole brood, as well as the eggs and 

 pupae, which in an old nest all require attention at the 

 same time, to cells situated lower down in the earth, where 

 they will be safe from the cold ; and in the morning they 

 as constantly remove them again towards the surface of 

 the nest. If, however, there is a prospect of cold or wet 

 weather, the provident ants forbear on that day transport- 

 ing their young from the inner cells, aware that their ten- 

 der frames are unable to withstand an inclement sky. What 

 is particularly worthy of notice in this herculean task, the 

 ants constantly regulate their proceedings by the sun, re- 

 moving their young according to the earlier or later 

 rising and setting of that luminary. As soon as his first 

 rays begin to shine on the exterior of the nest, the ants 

 that are at the top go below in great haste to rouse their 

 companions, whom they strike with their antenna?, or, 

 when they do not seem to comprehend them, drag with 

 their jaws to the summit till a swarm of busy labourers 

 fill every passage. These take up the larvae and pupae, 

 which they hastily transport to the upper part of their ha- 

 bitation, where they leave them a quarter of an hour, and 

 then carry them into apartments where they are shelter- 

 ed from the sun's direct rays a . 



Severe as this constant and unremitted daily labour 

 seems, it is but a small part of what the affection of the 



;1 Huber, 74- 



