ANTS AND THEIR HELPLESS CHILDREN. 277 
natural to take the little garden -ant, which is the 
one we most often come across. But it lives a 
great part of its time underground, and though it 
comes to the surface to sun itself and wander about, 
it does not do much work above ground, except 
when it is visiting its cows (see p. 287). It will be 
better therefore to take another common ant, the 
hill -ant or horse - ant, *"" as it is often called, which 
lives a more out-door life. 
You can scarcely walk through any English wood 
without coming across lines of these reddish-looking 
ants, which are often of very different sizes, and have, 
for ants, rather large eyes. Their nests are easily 
found, forming large leafy hillocks at the foot of oak 
trees, or sometimes in the open ground. Even in 
England they are often two feet high, and on the 
Continent they are much larger. At an early hour 
in the morning all will be still and quiet on these 
hillocks, for the ants close their doors at night with 
leaves, or bits of stick and straw : but as soon as 
the sun rises and flings its beams across the leafy 
wood, warming the air, you may see a few ants 
creep out of cracks in the dome ; and by and by, 
if the day be fine, many large openings will be made, 
and soon all is alive and active. Some ants are 
dragging in bits of wood, and straw, and leaves, to 
add to the dome ; others are carrying in bits of insects, 
young grasshoppers, or worms, or caterpillars, whose 
juices they will feed upon in the nest ; others creep 
into the blossoms of plants to steal their honey ; while 
others, again, seek out the stems covered with aphides 
or plant-lice, and beg of them their sweet juice. 
* formica rufa. 
