KATURAL HISTORY. 
55 
an intuition that mocks even the conception of the 
sagest of human kind." 
The labours and the policy of ants, are, when 
closely examined, still more wonderful than those 
of the bee. Their nest is a city consisting of dwell- 
ing places, halls, streets, and squares into which the 
streets open. The food they principally like is the 
honey which comes from another insect found in 
their neighbourhood, and which they, generally 
speaking, bring home from day to day as they want 
it. Later discoveries have shewn that they do not 
eat grain, but live almost entirely on animal food and 
this honey. Some kinds of ant have the foresight to 
bring home the insects on whose honey they feed, 
and keep them in particular cells, where they guard 
them to prevent their escaping, and feed them with 
proper vegetable matter, which they do not eat them- 
selves. Nay they obtain the eggs of those insects 
and superintend their hatching, and then rear the 
young insect until he becomes capable of supplying 
the desired honey. They sometimes remove them to 
^ the strongest parts of their nest, where there are 
- cells apparently fortified to protect them from inva- 
sion. In those cells the insects are kept to supply 
the wants of the whole ants which compose the 
population of the city. It is only by the contempla- 
tion of these interesting facts that we can receive 
with full force the emphatic injunction of that 
eminent naturalist, the wise King of Israel, " Go to 
the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be 
wise." 
