204 
TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 
two nests encroach upon each other, they fight in military array, 
and with great skill. 
It is very interesting to watch the workers in their almost 
incessant nursing of the larvae. They clean them by rubbing 
them with their palpi, they carry them in the early morning 
up into the higher stories of the nest, so that they may be 
warmer, and they bring them back again into the depths of the 
cells when the sun becomes too hot for these frail little creatures. 
It is very wonderful how the worker ants manage to carry these 
very soft larvae in their very sharp mandibles, but accidents 
never happen, and such a thing is unknown as a wound pro- 
duced by unusual pressure, or by tumbling up against the walls 
of the long corridors and chambers of the nest. When the larvae 
become full grown they spin a silky cocoon in order that they 
may undergo their metamorphosis in it. The cocoons are oval 
in shape, and indeed so much so that they are usually called 
ant’s eggs ; and it is certainly curious that a great number of 
intelligent and highly educated people believe that ants lay 
eggs much larger than themselves. In fact, it does not strike 
them as being at all wonderful. Does not nearly every one talk 
about the ant’s eggs, which are collected to feed young phea- 
sants ? but these so-called eggs are really cocoons manufactured 
by larvae, and which contain them or nymphs. The nymphs are 
perfectly enclosed in their silky cocoons ; they are white, and 
resemble the adult form swathed up. The workers carry them 
about as they do the larvae, and with the same intentions. 
When the metamorphosis is completed the perfect ant is 
absolutely too weak to tear open the silk of its cocoon, and 
would inevitably perish in this natural prison were it not for the 
vigilance of the workers, which, like excellent nurses, never let their 
charges out of their sight. Perceiving that a change has taken 
place inside the cocoon, these admirable attendants open it with 
their mandibles, and set free their new companion. But even 
when thus safely born the lately metamorphosed insects are not 
in a condition either to take care of themselves, or to take a part 
in the labours of the community, so their nurses do not leave them, 
but give them nourishment, and then lead them all over the nest, 
and thus appear to introduce them to their new life. Fortunately, 
