Contemplating now the ants as in some respects an excluded race, which with a large share of pugnacity can not find a basis of operations for contending against the bees, we have to turn attention briefly on their modes of life. The industry of the ant is proverbial, and can not fail to arrest the attention of any one who spends a few minutes before an ant-hill. But carefully recorded observations prove it to be much greater than could have been imagined. Sir John Lubbock has rendered special service here by carefully noting the time occupied, as well as the amount of work done, thus preserving a series of observations exceedingly suggestive in many ways, and having an important bearing on a considerable number of difficult questions connected with the relative powers of lower and higher orders of life. A similar service has been rendered in America in the work of the Rev. H. C. McCook of Philadelphia, on _The Natural History of the Agricultural Ant of Texas_,--a book recording careful and most important observations, adding much to the stores of knowledge concerning ants.[CH] The work of the ants is directed mainly to the two great objects of animal life, procuring food, and caring for the young, to which falls to be added, the repelling of attacks upon their nests, or removal of any thing obnoxious. They destroy great numbers of smaller insects, bearing them to their nests for consumption, besides going off in search of honey which may be within reach, and not guarded with spikes. This mode of providing implies a very busy life, and they do not as a rule grudge work. Besides procuring supplies, however, there is a large amount of labor in the care bestowed upon their young. Without attempting to distinguish various orders, of which "more than seven hundred kinds are known,"[CI] a general description of their young will suffice. In the earliest stage of their existence, the larvæ are small conical shaped grubs, without power of movement. In this state they are fed, carried about from place to place as if their seniors were seeking change of air and temperature for them; and in process of these removals and arrangements, they are often grouped together in separate companies, and in exact order according to their size. In their next stage, they become pupæ, sometimes quite exposed, in other cases covered with a thin silken covering. From this, they pass into the mature state as perfect insects, and in process of this transition older ants render assistance by way of aiding the transition, "carefully unfolding their legs and smoothing out their wings."