248 
WAITING ON THE YOUNG. 
tary in their habits, attend entirely to domestic cares and the education 
of the young. An immense and an incessant occupation, if we may 
judge from the continual movement of the nurses round the cradles. 
Let but a raindrop fall, or a single sunbeam penetrate, and a general 
stir takes place, a general removal of all the children of the colony, 
and this with an ardour which never wearies. You may see them 
tenderly taking up the big children—which weigh as much as them¬ 
selves—and transferring them from stage to stage, to rest them in a 
convenient position. 
This scale of heat, extending over forty degrees, what is it but a 
thermometer ? 
But more remains. The cares of alimentation, of what one might call 
“ suckling,” are much more complicated than among the bees. The eggs 
must receive a nourishing humidity from the mouth of the nurses. The 
larvae take the beakful. And the young one which has worn through 
its husk and become a nymph, would not have strength enough to 
emerge from it if the attentive guardians were not at hand to open the 
husk, release the little tenant, and initiate it into the light. In the arti¬ 
ficial ant-hills, which we have procured for the sake of closer examina¬ 
tion, we have even succeeded in observing a circumstance which Huber 
regrets he had been unable to discover. 
Some light movements which the infant communicates to its swad¬ 
dling-clothes give warning that its hour is come. We took great 
pleasure in watching the nurses seated upon their hind limbs like 
little motionless, upright fairies, plainly discerning under the silent veil 
the first yearning for liberty. 
As in every superior race, the young comes into the world weak, 
and frail, and incapable of effort. Its first steps are so infirm that at 
every movement it falls upon its knees. It requires, as it were, to be 
kept in leading-strings. Its great vitality is only shown by an inces¬ 
sant demand for food. Therefore, when the heat is great, and numer¬ 
ous swaddling-husks must be opened daily, the new-born are all lodged 
in the same part of the city. 
One day, however, I saw a young ant thrust forth its head, still 
somewhat pale, at a gate of the city, then step across the threshold, 
