"I wasn't so far gone but I gave the hand I'd been holding a grip that squeezed the fingers together. It was all the thanks I could offer just then. Lancy squeezed back. Then everybody turned to and helped fight the bees off us. "It was weeks before I got over those stings. Lancy had suffered, too, but of course not so badly. I don't know that he ever knew why I gripped his hand so hard. I was too much ashamed to tell him of the grudge I'd held. But I do know that after that I looked on him as one of my best friends. He'd saved my life, and a friend can't do much more for you than that." THE INTELLIGENCE OF ANTS By Sir John Lubbock The subject of ants is a wide one, for there are at least a thousand species of ants, no two of which have the same habits. In this country (England) we have rather more than thirty, most of which I have kept in confinement. Their life is comparatively long: I have had working ants which were seven years old, and a queen ant lived in one of my nests for fifteen years. The community consists, in addition to the young, of males, which do no work, of wingless workers, and one or more queen mothers, who have at first wings, which, however, after one marriage flight, they throw off, as they never leave the nest again, and in it wings would of course be useless. The workers do not, except occasionally, lay eggs, but carry on all the affairs of the community. Some of them, and especially the younger ones, remain in the nest, excavate chambers and tunnels, and tend the young, which are sorted up according to age, so that my nests often had the appearance of a school, with the children arranged in classes. In our English ants the workers in each species are all similar except in size, but among foreign species there are some in which there are two or even more classes of workers, differing greatly not only in size, but also in form. The differences are not the result of age nor of race, but are adaptations to different functions, the nature of which, however, is not yet well understood. Among the Termites, those of one class certainly seem to act as soldiers, and among the true ants also some have comparatively immense heads and powerful jaws. It is doubtful, however, whether they form a real army. Bates observed that on a foraging expedition the large-headed individuals did not walk in the regular ranks, nor on the return did they carry any of the booty, but marched along at the side, and at tolerably regular intervals, "like subaltern officers in a marching regiment."