62 
THE ANT. 
side of a heap of soil : the Ants fill the nest with 
food, laid by for the time when it gets too cold for 
them to be out of the nest : they will lay up corn, 
or any kind of seed — or rice, if you will give them 
a bit. At one time of the year Ants can fly : this 
is when the nest gets so full of them that some 
have to go away ; they then fly off* to a new spot 
on the bank, or to some clod of soil a good way ofi", 
and they then form a new nest: as soon as they 
have done this, they can not fly any more, but they 
can run very fast. They are very busy, for they 
have to make a cell for each egg, and to lay up 
food to eat when it is too cold to go out of the 
nest. 
Some Ants — not like ours — that live a long way 
off, in a hot land, make so big a nest that it is as 
tall as a man, and has a good deal the look of a 
hay cock, only it is not made of hay ; and one kind 
will eat into a dead tree, if it can find one that lies 
down, so that no part is left but the bark, and will 
also run all over the wall of a room, and eat up 
any kind of odds and ends, and will do a good deal 
of harm in this way. 
