IN FEATHERS AND FUR. 147 
NURSERIES FOR BABY BUGS. 
You have seen how carefully a hen feeds and cuddles her 
chickens, and perhaps you have been so happy as to see birds feed 
their nestful of little ones ; but did you ever see ants and bees feed 
their babies ? 
You don't believe they do? That's only because you don't 
know anything about it. I can tell you that little insects, not so 
big as a grain of wheat, take as good care of their little ones as the 
fussy old hen ; though they don't make so much noise about it. 
And, as they're afraid of you, they take good care to hide their 
babies away, and run — or fly — the minute they see you coming. 
In the first place, most of these little mothers die before their 
babies come out of the egg ; so they have to build the nursery, and 
prepare food for the baby, while it is still a tiny, tiny egg — often so 
little you can scarcely see it. 
Perhaps you know that the baby of a butterfly, or a bug, is 
not a butterfly, or bug, like its mother, at first, but is a small worm 
or grub. Of course, it can't eat such food as its mother does ; but 
the wise little mother knows just what it will like to eat, and w T orks 
hard to lay up a good stock of food, as well as to get a roof over 
her baby. Some of the little mothers, however, don't care for a 
roof, and they merely hunt out the proper plant, that the grub will 
like, and glue the eggs to the leaf. 
One kind of insect longs to put her babies safe into the warm 
stomach of a horse. A funny nursery, you think ; but just the one 
for the Gadfly baby. So she glues each egg to a hair of the horse ; 
and she's very careful to fix it where he'll be sure to lick it off, on 
his shoulder or knee. When he takes them off with his tongue, 
they get into his mouth, and so they go down to his stomach. 
What a marvelous care for the little one is that ! 
