These eggs are at first so small that you could scarcely see them, and they would probably never become living ants if not diligently tended; but under the care of their nurses they soon grow larger, and at the end of a fortnight the baby ants creep out, not bigger than grains of sand, but with head and wings complete. The first want of every living thing is food, so the nurses begin to feed their charge by placing the little open mouths to their own, and giving them the food which they have stored. Then I have watched them carrying them up and down, that they may enjoy the warmth of the cellars or the air and sunshine of the upper rooms, just as if they had a thermometer to tell them the exact amount of heat or cold that was needed. And I must not forget to tell you that part of the duty of the nurses is to keep their babies white and clean, and this they do not neglect, but wash them with their tongues, as pussy washes her kitten. Even when their nurslings are full-grown, and begin to spin a silken cocoon round themselves, and it would seem as if, being no longer in need of food, they might be left to themselves, the untiring workers do not give up their charge. We may see them carrying little oval bodies carefully about: and these are the cocoons which they take to the top of the nest every morning, and back again at night. Most wonderful of all, they have an instinct which tells them when the perfect insect within the cocoon is ready to escape from its prison-house, and also that it is not strong enough to force its own way through. Working three or four together, very gently and patiently they open the silken covering, just where the insect's head lies, cutting the threads one by one until a hole is made, large enough for the young ant to crawl through. When at last released from what has been its cradle and its prison, the tiny creature is still wrapped in a thin covering, which the kind nurses remove. They carefully stretch out the wings of the males and females, and pile the empty cocoons outside the nest ready for building; for waste and disorder are unknown in an ant-city. Nursery days ended, the young insects are now shown "all over the house," conducted from one "winding stair" to another, taught to know friends from foes, fed and petted, until they take their airy flight beyond the reach of the wingless caretakers of their infant needs. By-and-by you will read more about how the workers, by their busy toil, "Raise such monstrous hills along the plain Larger than mountains,"