Ants live in vast communities of from one hundred thousand to five hundred thousand or more. They excavate the soil and gravel, descend into the ground, and tunnel it in every direction (Fig. 245). In certain places they store food, in others eggs. The affairs of their vast underground city are carried on with a marvelous method. Although the ants have wings, these are soon cast away. At certain times the winged males and females swarm out of the nest and fly away, forming other communities. The males soon die; the females rid themselves of their wings, and thereafter remain in their new nests. The entire work of the community falls upon the so-called workers. They make the nest, repair it, do the fighting when necessary, move the immature young or eggs, shut up the nest at night, and open it in the morning. The eggs are minute, and as soon as laid are taken by the workers, or nurses, as they are also called, and carried to favorable places, where they are carefully watched. They are shifted about and occasionally for some reason brought above ground. The larvæ, when they hatch (Fig. 246), appear as little worms, or grubs, which would starve if they were not constantly fed by the nurses. If it is too cold, these babies are taken up into the sunshine, or placed in some hall near the surface where the sun's rays can reach them. Finally they change to the pupa stage and are covered by a web. They are still cared for with the greatest solicitude by the nurses, which stand by when they finally hatch out and aid them in their entrance into the world. Nurses in every sense of the word, their care at this time is one of the most remarkable exhibitions of human traits in a lower animal known. Many other human traits find their prototype among these minute animals. They care for the young, the sick, and the wounded; they go to war, capture their foes, make slaves of them, and force them to work. They keep certain insects for the pleasant odor they afford and others for the secretions they emit, the latter action resembling keeping and milking cows. Ants build remarkable houses arranged in rooms for various purposes; they plant gardens to raise certain crops; they introduce plants that will provide certain food; they retard the growth of seeds in their granaries; build vast underground or covered roads to escape the heat; they make bridges to cross streams; and in numerous other ways they demonstrate their remarkable intelligence. [Illustration: FIG. 246.--Egg and larvæ of the ant.] The extent of the homes of ants is astonishing when we bear in mind the size of the insect. Some often extend many feet underground, and their tunnels have been traced beneath the broad Paraiba River of South America.