All of the ant-men of the entire nation of Formia are raised from eggs laid by the ruling monarch. The vocation of any given ant-man is determined long before he is hatched, or even before his egg is laid. From an elaborate system of records, kept in the Imperial City, the Council of Twelve is able to determine, as to each batch of eggs, whether it should produce professors, farmers, laborers, officers, soldiers, servants, or what; and the eggs are accordingly laid in appropriate food. Sort of “tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” The young ants, when fully grown and in the cocoon stage, are transported by truckloads to the part of the empire where they are to be trained and where their life is to be spent. Thus the pupae for soldiers and officers are sent to Wautoosa, for instance. Not only is occupation determined in advance, but so also, to a large extent, is sex. Thus only enough males are produced to supply the queen’s harem, the rest of the royal offspring being sexless females. Whenever a queen dies, the council immediately chooses several likely larvae and changes their food so as to produce fully developed females; the first of these to reach maturity being queen, and the rest being killed. The food chosen for the production of the higher classes of ant-men consists of condemned criminals. This was where I came in. At this point in the explanation an idea occurred to me. “Do you really mean to say, Doggo,” I gasped, “that you are a lady and not a man—that the whole nation of Formians are females?” “Yes,” he replied, “and furthermore the more highly developed of us occasionally lay eggs, though of course we never try to hatch them, for that would be even worse a treason than the one with which _you_ are charged. I myself even have laid eggs, but it is generally supposed that such eggs would not hatch.” I could hardly believe it. A nation of Amazons! I could not help continuing to regard them as males. But to go on with the alternative penalties. I have described the egg-laying. The other penalty, namely the Valley of the Howling Rocks, supplied a most diabolical form of punishment. This valley extends about a mile along the international boundary line, so that the pale stops at one end and begins again at the other. Its sides are steep and unscalable, and into it are cast the worst criminals of both countries. Some undetermined natural cause within the valley sets up such a terrific din that the victims are driven crazy and perish because of the sound. I thought that I should prefer any noise, however awful, to the alternative of having eggs laid in me; but Doggo assured me that the valley was by far the worse of the two. However, my wishes finally prevailed, and Doggo promised to try and secure the valley punishment, in event of a conviction.