FEATURES OF ANT-LIFE.—In order that the reader may realise the nature of ant-life we may briefly recount its more usual and general features. Numerous eggs are produced in a nest by one or more queens, and are taken care of by workers. These eggs hatch and produce helpless maggots, of which great care is taken by the workers. These nurses feed their charges from their own mouths, and keep the helpless creatures in a fitting state by transporting them to various chambers in conformity with changes of temperature, humidity, and so on. When full grown the maggots change to pupae. In some species the maggots form cocoons for themselves, but in others this is not the case, and the pupae are naked.[54] After a brief period of {135}pupal life a metamorphosis into the perfect Insect occurs. The creatures then disclosed may be either winged or wingless; the wingless are the workers and soldiers—imperfect females—the winged are males or females fully developed. The workers remain in or near the nest they were produced in, but the winged individuals rise into the air for a nuptial flight, often in great numbers, and couple. When this is accomplished the male speedily dies, but the females cast their wings and are ready to enter on a long life devoted to the production of eggs. From this account it will be gathered that males are only found in the nests for a very short time; the great communities consisting at other periods entirely of the two kinds of females and of young. The imperfect females are themselves in some species of various kinds; each kind being restricted, more or less completely, to a distinct kind of duty. No Insects are more familiar to us than ants; in warm countries some of them even invade the habitations of man, or establish their communities in immediate proximity to his dwellings. Their industry and pertinacity have, even in remote ages, attracted the attention and admiration of serious men; some of whom—we need scarcely mention Solomon as amongst them—have not hesitated to point out these little creatures as worthy of imitation by that most self-complacent of all the species of animals, _Homo sapiens_.