To make a room, the ants often have to stand on their hind legs, and bite the earth off, as they reach up their heads. Sometimes the ant lies on its side, to clean off or smooth the side wall. They have been seen at work, lying on their backs, as men do in mines. The jaws of the ant have tiny teeth. In old work ants the teeth are often quite worn off. The feet and jaws of the ant are well made for digging. The feet have small hairs. By the aid of these the ants can run up a piece of glass, or hang on a wall, as you would say, “upside down.” An ant-hill is made of very many little halls and rooms. Some open into each other; some do not. The rooms are bedrooms, nurseries, pantries, and dining rooms. Many of the rooms are shaped like a horseshoe. Some are round. The ants press and knead the floors and walls to make them hard and smooth. Sometimes they line them with a sticky soil, like paste, to keep the earth from falling in. Some ants seem to make a kind of glue, or varnish, with which they line their walls. FOOTNOTES: [4] For Lessons on Bees and Wasps, see First Book. [5] _Pupa_ is used when we speak of one, _pupæ_ when we mean more than one. LESSON IV. THE ANTS AT HOME. We have taken a look at the ants and have seen how the hill is made. Let us now see how the ants live in their hill-home. When we go to visit them, we shall find ants running all about the hill and in the halls. These are the work ants. Some seem to stand on the hill to watch lest any danger may come near. When the drone ants and the queens are young, the work ants let them go out and fly. When they go out, the drones do not often come back. They get lost or die. The young queens come back, except those who go off to make new hills. But when the young queen settles down in life, to her work of laying eggs, the workers do not let her leave the hill any more. How do they keep her in? If she has not taken off her pretty wings, they take them off and throw them away! If she tries to walk off, a worker picks her up in its jaws and carries her back. The ants are kind to their queen. They feed her and pet her, and she becomes very lazy. She does not even care to lay her eggs in a nice clean place. The idle queen drops her eggs anywhere. The kind worker ants pick them up, and take them to a soft bedroom. When there are too many young queens in one hill, they do not have a war, as the bees do. The workers settle the trouble, by taking off the wings of some of the young queens, and turning them into work ants. This is done before the queens begin to lay eggs. New-born ants and queens, who do not go out into the sunshine, are of a light color. The other ants are dark. In cold, wet weather the ants stay at home. If a rain comes up when they are out, they hurry back. Early in the day, and late in the afternoon, they all seem to be very busy. In the hot hours of the day they stay in the hill and rest.