Then they went to a hall higher up, where the porridge for the chrysalises was being prepared, and there Tom saw workers hurrying out of the nests with empty coverings of the chrysalises. He thought how this soft silk used to be brought by the gnome merchants to his father and how, at home, they were woven into precious silken garments. [Illustration] From the granaries and kitchens, they came to the stalls, where Tom saw green bugs, fat and lazy, crawling under a low arch. From the back of each bug extended two little tubes, through which the ants were sucking as they tickled the bugs with their feelers. Tom was surprised again, when Mirmex explained that, through these tubes, the bugs let out a sweet juice, of which the ants are very fond. »We keep many of them here,« continued Mirmex, »for the workers engaged in the town. Those who are working outside, have their large stalls on the flowers.« Tom asked why the bugs on the flowers did not run away and Mirmex told him, that where there were enough bugs on a flower, the ants surrounded it with trenches and ramparts, so that the bugs were in captivity and could not escape. »There they stay in their captivity and do not have to be fed and the workmen do not have to return to the town to drink,« he added. Little Tom sincerely admired the whole arrangement of the ants town. This pleased Mirmex. »Let us go a little further,« he continued. »I will next show you our hot-beds.« They went along a narrow corridor, and Tom, touching the walls, found them damp. They passed through rooms that were very hot, until they reached a low chamber which was filled with damp, round leaves, while the walls were covered with mildew. Tom did not care to go into this damp hot bed, but Mirmex laughed. »Do you remember,« he inquired, »how you helped us build a crossing over the strip of glue on the rose-bush in the garden? At that time you were curious to know why we were biting out little circles from the rose leaves and were carrying them away. Here you see the leaves piled up in heaps. In this part of the mound grows a mushroom. Here it is damp. The water comes from a near-by mossfield and the dampness is good for the mushroom mildew. It puts out little thin stalks that grow up from the rose leaves.« Tom noticed that the heaps were covered with long stalks which surrounded them like grass. While he was looking at them, many ants came into the room. One examined the stalks to see if they were sufficiently grown and then they started to work. One after the other, they bit the shoots on the end. Mirmex conducted Tom into the second room, so as not to be in the way of the workers. There were no longer stalks on the leaves but, in their place, stunted, round bulbs as if the heap were covered with pin heads.