Wasps do much good in the garden by destroying grubs and caterpillars, and they are quite willing to take their wages in overripe fruit at the end of the season.
A LITTLE BLACK SLAVE.
I am going to tell you about a little slave who lived in France. Her name was Alerta, and she was a tiny black ant.
Not far from Paris there lived a colony of red ants—great lazy fellows who would not work and who would hardly find food for themselves. They thought that a set of slaves would help them very much.
"If we had slaves," they said, "we should not have to milk our cows or take care of our children."
So one fine morning they set out to conquer some weaker colony and make slaves of the prisoners of war.
It was not long before they came upon a nest of black ants.
"These are good workers," said the lazy red ants. "They will make good servants." So they fell upon the nests and carried off all the baby ants.
"We could never carry the older ones so far," said the red ants, "but these children will grow up before long."
This was true. Soon Alerta was a fine, strong young ant. One morning her mistress tapped her on the shoulder.