When I began to employ workmen in this country, nothing annoyed me more than the necessity to hire also an _overseer,_ or to fulfil this office myself. But I soon found this was universal, and strictly necessary. Without an overseer very little work would be done, and nothing as it should be. The workmen will not work at all unless kept to it and directed in it by an overseer who is himself a perfect specimen of laziness. He does absolutely nothing but smoke his pipe, order this, scold that one, discuss the how and the why with the men themselves, or with idle passers-by. This overseeing often costs more than the work overseen. Now the ants manage far better. Every one attends to his own business and does it well. In another respect these provident creatures read a very necessary lesson to Orientals. In all warm climates there is a ruinous want of calculation and forecast. Having enough for the current day, men are reckless as to the future. . . . Now the ant "provideth her meat in summer." All summer long, and especially in harvest, every denizen of their populous habitation is busy. As we ride or walk over the grassy plains, we notice paths leading to their subterranean granaries; at first broad, clean and smooth, like roads near a city, but constantly branching off into smaller and less distinct, until they disappear in the herbage of the plain. Along these converging paths hurry thousands of ants, thickening inward until it becomes an unbroken column of busy beings going in search of or returning with their food. I read lately, in a work of some pretension, that ants do not carry away wheat or barley. This was by way of comment on Prov. vi. 8. Tell it to these farmers, and they will laugh at you. Ants are the greatest robbers in the land. Leave a bushel of wheat in the vicinity of one of their subterranean cities, and in a surprisingly short time the whole commonwealth will be summoned to plunder. A broad, black column stretches from the wheat to the hole, and, as if by magic, every grain seems to be accommodated with legs, and walks off in a hurry along the moving column.--_Thompson's Land and the Book._ Solomon's lesson to the sluggard has been generally adduced as a strong confirmation of the ancient opinion, that ants have a magazine of provisions for winter; it can, however, only relate to the species of a warm climate, the habits of which are probably different from those of a cold one; so that his words, as commonly interpreted, may be perfectly correct and consistent with Nature, and yet be not at all applicable to the species that are indigenous to Europe. But Solomon does not affirm that the ant laid up in her cell stores of grain, but that she gathers her food when it is most plentiful, and thus shows her wisdom and prudence. The words thus interpreted will apply to the species among us, as well as to those that are not indigenous.--_Kirby and Spence's Entomology._ _OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._