ANTS — NURSING- AND EDUCATION. 
59 
Great care is also taken by the workers in cleaning the 
larvae, as well as in carrying them up and down the 
chambers of the nest for warmth or shelter. 
When fully grown the larvae spin cocoons, and are then 
pupae, or the 6 ants’ eggs 5 of bird-fanciers. These require 
no food, but still need incessant attention with reference 
to warmth, moisture, and cleanliness. When the time 
arrives for their emergence as perfect insects, the workeis 
assist them to get out of their larval cases by biting 
through the walls of the latter. It is noticeable that in 
doing this the workers do not keep to any exact time, 
but free them sometimes earlier and sometimes later, in 
accordance with their rate of development. 6 The little 
animal when freed from its chrysalis is still covered with 
a thin skin, like a little shirt, which has to be pulled off. 
When we see how neatly and gently this is done, and 
how the young creature is then washed, brushed, and 
fed, we are involuntarily reminded of the nursing of 
human babies. The empty cases, or cocoons, are carried 
outside the nest, and may be seen heaped together there 
for a long time. Some species carry them far away from 
the nest, or turn them into building materials for the 
dwelling.’ 1 
Education . — The young ant does not appear to come 
into the world with a full instinctive knowledge of all its 
duties as a member of a social community. It is led about 
the nest, and 6 trained to a knowledge of domestic duties, 
especially in the case of the larvae.’ Later on the young 
ants are taught to distinguish between friends and foes. 
When an ants’ nest is attacked by foreign ants, the young 
ones never join in the fight, but confine themselves to 
removing the pupae ; and that the knowledge of hereditary 
enemies is not wholly instinctive in ants is proved by the 
following experiment, which we owe to Forel. He put 
young ants belonging to three different species into a glass 
case with pupae of six other species — all the species being 
naturally hostile to one another. The young ants did 
not quarrel, but worked together to tend the pupae. When 
the latter hatched out, an artificial colony was formed of 
1 Biichner, Geistesleben dev Thieve , pp. 66-7. 
