The Book of Job, that Eastern drama which is so wonderful in its lessons suited to human experiences in all time, is marvellously comprehensive in its illustrations drawn from the natural world. We are taken there into the regions of ice and snow, and again we pass through the rich verdure of the tropics. We try to sound the frozen deeps, and anon survey the hot desert plains; we wander where the lion seeks his prey, and through dense forests where behemoth, or the elephant, feeds. The coral and the pearls are there, so are the gold ore, the iron, and the brass. The Author shows us the ostrich "that scorneth the horse and its rider, the hawk that stretched her wings towards the south like our peregrine, the wander falke"--the eagle that makes her nest on high yet "is with the slain on the earth beneath." And this great observer says, "Ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee, and the fowls and they shall tell thee, or speak to the earth and it shall teach thee, and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee." [Illustration: THE WOOD ANT (_Formica rufa_). (_a_) Male; (_b_) female; (_c_) worker.] The lessons to be learned from the ant are, of course, diligence and a careful or prudent forethought for the future. Solomon says that the ant "has no guide, overseer, or ruler," yet she provides, having gathered in during the summer and the harvest time. How many of us there are who seem to need tutors and governors to urge us on through the duties of life, not only in childhood, but far on into man and womanhood. Compulsory pressure from without alone rouses some of us to action. Man thinks himself the lord of creation, and is yet far outdone by a weak insect, not only in energy and persistent work, but often positively in intelligence. Perhaps you have, many of you, read of the so-called warrior ants, the _Termites bellicosi_ of the more tropical regions. They do not belong to the same order of insects as our own ants, and we are happily not subjected to the havoc which their building and devouring works. Two species of termites have, however, got established in France, notably in Rochefort, La Rochelle, and Aix, and there they have undermined and utterly ruined a number of houses. In one town they gnawed away the supports of a dining-room before their ravages were detected, and the floor gave way during a party, the host and his guests suddenly falling through together. Artillery charged with grapeshot has been employed to destroy great fortresses that these ants have made in a tropical country. In South Africa the termites work enormous havoc. They live in a social republic of their own. Some of them, the males, have wings; the workmen, the soldiers, and the queens however have none. The workmen construct their buildings, the soldiers defend the colony and keep order, and the females, or queens, are worshipped by all the others. These become in point of fact mere egg-laying machines, which have at last to remain tied to one spot.