Young ants, like young people, wish to set up for themselves in new homes. They spread their fine wings. Off they fly! Since there is not room in the old hill they will build a new one.
They swarm as the bees do. As they rise high from the earth, they drift off on the wind. Very many of them tire out and die, or are blown into the water, and are drowned. A few live and settle on places fit for a new ant-hill.
It is the mother or queen ant who chooses the new home. When she has found the right place, what do you think she does? She takes off her wings, as she does not care to fly any more.
The ant does not tear off her wings. She unhooks them, and lets them fall away, and does not seem to miss them.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] When we mean only one we say larva; when we mean more than one we say larvæ.
LESSON III.
THE ANT’S HOME.
Ants live in nests, made in the earth. We call them ant-hills, from the shape of the part that is above ground. It is the queen ant who begins to build the ant-hill.
