Ruth had edged closer, and was listening eagerly. Once more the little ant looked at her approvingly, then went on:
“Some people think our houses are queer, because they are dark. Of course we have no windows, only a door, and that is a hole in the roof. We like it so though, and you might be surprised if you could see our many wonderful galleries and chambers. We made them all too. Dug them out of the earth, with our feet, throwing the soil out behind us, until the burrow grew too deep. Then we had to take it out grain by grain. We made our pillars and supports also, using damp earth for mortar. We don’t mind work, but we do mind human giants carelessly putting their feet in the middle of our hill and breaking in upon our private life. Those accidents will happen though, and our first thought is always the babies. They have no legs, and we have no hands, so we take them in our jaws, and speed away with them to our underground chambers, where they will be safe. I have seen human babies carried when they did have legs. There is no excuse for that.
THE HOUSE OF THE MOUND-BUILDER ANT
“Another thing, I know better than to call a human baby an egg, but, would you believe me, there are lots of people who think our babies are eggs. I have heard them called so. Now the reason we are so careful of our babies is because if there were no babies there would be no ants, and that brings me to the queen, for without her there would be no babies, because there would be no eggs, and babies always begin by being eggs. Only the queen lays eggs, remember that. She is important for this reason, and no other. She is not our ruler, as some suppose. In fact, we have no ruler. Ants do as they please, but they usually please to do what is best for the whole community. We have many queens, but they are not jealous of each other, as the bee queens are. They do not look like us workers. They are ever so much larger, and were hatched with wings. The males also have wings, but it really matters very little what they have. They are such a weakly set, and after they go abroad with the queens, when they take the one flight of their lives, they usually die, or something eats them, and so they are settled. It is the queens who interest us. Some of them we never see again. They go off somewhere and start new colonies, or something may eat them too, but those that come back either unhook their wings, or we do it for them. Then they settle down and begin to lay eggs. Their egg laying is not after the fashion of bee queens, who go to certain cells and leave eggs in them. The ants drop their eggs as they walk around.”
“Don’t they get lost?” asked Ruth.
“No, indeed. Workers follow and pick up every one. They take good care of those precious eggs, too, and when they hatch into helpless grubs, without wings or feet, our work begins in earnest. Every morning we carry them into the sunshine, and bring them down again at night. We fondle them too, and keep them clean by licking them all over. Then of course they must be fed, and, like other babies, they prefer milk.”
“And I know where you get the milk!” cried Ruth, all excitement. “It is from the aphides, isn’t it? The cicada told me. The aphides are his cousins. He doesn’t think so much of them, but he says you do.”
“Well, why shouldn’t we? They give us the most delicious milk. We have a fine herd of aphides now pasturing on a stalk of sweetbrier, and when Winter comes we will keep their eggs down in our nest, and put them on the sweetbrier in the Spring, so that the little aphides which hatch from them will have plenty to eat. Yes, and we may even build tiny sheds for them to keep their enemies from reaching them.”
“I wonder if you intend to talk all day?” broke in a sharp voice. “I sha’n’t wait another minute.”