282 LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
winged ants will be wandering about which have 
also to be cared for. These are the male ants, and 
the young females which have not yet begun to lay 
eggs. They have come out of cocoons rather different 
in size and shape from those of the wingless worker 
ants, and we do not yet know what decides this 
difference. There is no jealousy in an ants' nest 
(as there is in a beehive) between the queen-mother 
and the young princesses; indeed in some nests several 
queen mothers live amicably together. But still 
the workers have to feed and watch all these winged 
ants, and though the young princesses are allowed 
to go outside on the dome of the nest and sun them- 
selves, the workers never leave them, and towards 
evening may be seen taking hold of them by the 
mandibles and dragging them gently home to bed. 
By and by, later in the year, all these winged ants 
will come out of the nest in a swarm and rise and 
fall in the air like the May-flies over the pond. Then 
the males will never return to the nest, but will 
wander about and soon die, or be devoured in num- 
bers by birds or other insects. The same thing 
will happen to many of the princesses, but some will 
be seized by the workers and dragged back to the 
nest, where their wings are pulled off and they settle 
down into queens, and lay eggs. Others which have 
fallen at a distance will pull off their own wings, 
which are fastened very lightly to their shoulders, 
and will begin to dig a hole and lay eggs in the 
earth. Whether these solitary queens are able to 
found a new nest, or whether it is only when two or 
three workers join them that they live and flourish, 
is not yet certain, but Sir John Lubbock has shown 
