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Chap. XXV

CURIOSITIES RESPECTING INSECTS.--(Continued.) Ants-White Ants-Green Ants-Visiting Ants-The Ant-Lion These emmets, how little they are in our eyes!

We tread them to dust, and a troop of them dies Without our regard or concern:

Yet, as wise as we are, if we went to their school, There's many a sluggard, and many a fool, A lesson of wisdom might learn.

Watts THE Societies of ANTS, as also of other Hymenoptera, differ from those of the Termites, in having inactive larvæ and pupæ, the neuter, or workers, combining in themselves both the military and civil functions. Besides the helpless larvæ and pupæ, which have no locomotive powers, these societies consist of females and workers. The office of the females, at their first exclusion distinguished by a pair of ample wings, (which however, they soon cast,) is the foundation of new colonies, and the furnishing of a constant supply of eggs, for the maintenance of the population in the old nests, as well as in the new. These are usually the least numerous part of the community.

J.C.R E. WHIMPER. Se