FOOTNOTES:
[4] For Lessons on Bees and Wasps, see First Book.
[5] Pupa is used when we speak of one, pupæ when we mean more than one.
LESSON IV.
THE ANTS AT HOME.
We have taken a look at the ants and have seen how the hill is made. Let us now see how the ants live in their hill-home.
When we go to visit them, we shall find ants running all about the hill and in the halls. These are the work ants. Some seem to stand on the hill to watch lest any danger may come near.
When the drone ants and the queens are young, the work ants let them go out and fly. When they go out, the drones do not often come back. They get lost or die.
The young queens come back, except those who go off to make new hills. But when the young queen settles down in life, to her work of laying eggs, the workers do not let her leave the hill any more.
How do they keep her in? If she has not taken off her pretty wings, they take them off and throw them away! If she tries to walk off, a worker picks her up in its jaws and carries her back.