280 LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
other apartments are packets of eggs, many days 
old, and these are being licked all over and carried, 
several at a time, by the workers up into higher cham- 
bers, where the air is warmed by the morning sun. 
Again, in other chambers are heaps of little white, 
legless, blind grubs, with twelve soft rings to their 
bodies (g, Fig. 91;/, Fig. 9 3), and narrow mouths with 
soft mouth-pieces ending in a pointed lip. These 
little helpless creatures can do no more than just 
turn their heads to receive the drops of food which 
the nurses squeeze out of their crops down the infant 
throats. They are spotlessly clean, for they too 
are licked all over daily, and every speck of dirt is 
picked off by the mandibles of the worker ants, 
which not only feed and clean them, but carry them 
as they did the eggs, up for warmth in the day, and 
down at night to escape the chilly air. Sir John 
Lubbock has observed that these grubs are sometimes 
even sorted and arranged in groups, according to 
their size and age ; for they live and grow in this 
state for various periods according to the time of year, 
and sometimes remain as grubs for many months. 
In another chamber, quite a different process is 
going on, for here the grubs have arrived at the 
time when they are ready to remodel their bodies ; 
and each little grub, moving his head to and fro, is 
laying down silken threads within which he spins 
his soft cocoon. Still, here also the workers are 
busy, for as soon as each cocoon is finished, they 
loosen the outer threads clinging to the earth, and 
smooth and clean the cocoon till it is a pure oval 
ball, which they can carry up and down in the nest, 
though they can no longer feed the little creature 
