ANTS AND THEIR HELPLESS CHILDREN. 281 
within. It is these cocoons (c, Fig. 93) which people 
mistake for eggs, when they see the ants hurrying 
away with them when their nest is disturbed ; for 
the nurses guard their sleeping children with zealous 
care, and many a worker-ant has died sooner than 
leave a grub or a cocoon in the hands of an enemy. 
Lastly, in other chambers the final act of the baby 
ant's history is being carried on ; for after clean- 
ing and carrying and watching over the cocoons till 
the perfect ant is ready to come forth, the workers 
have still to help it out of its silken prison. This 
they do by tearing the cocoon gently with their 
mandibles, two or three of them at a time. Then 
carefully drawing the ant out of the hole, and licking 
it all over to clear it of its pupa skin, they feed it 
and leave it to go to its work, which for some little 
time will be all within the nest, till its coat has be- 
come hard and firm, and its limbs strong."" When 
once it is grown up it may live through many seasons ; 
for Sir J. Lubbock tells me that he has ants which 
have lived in his room since 1874, and they must 
therefore be now at least six, and probably seven 
years old. 
All this different work of nursing and feeding 
may be going on at one time in a nest ; some- 
times in different chambers, sometimes pell-mell, 
eggs, grubs, cocoons, and young ants all in the 
same room. But this is not all which the workers 
have to do, for if it be summer time a number of 
* Among some ants the grubs do not spin cocoons, but remain 
naked pupce like the chrysalis of the butterfly (see /, Fig. 91, p. 271), 
and even among these hill-ants this will sometimes happen late in the 
year. When the pupa is naked the young ant can get out by itself 
without help. 
