e subject a little attention, we find that they were not
created in vain. Were it not for these busy creatures, what would
become of the vast quantities of decomposing substances found in some
countries? What would be done with the decaying vegetation and the dead
animal matter? Why, in many places, were it not consumed by these
insects, and reorganised into new forms of life, it would produce
pestilence and death; and surely these are far more disagreeable things
than ants.

Of ants there are many different kinds; but the greatest number of
species belong to warm countries, where, indeed, they are most useful.
Some of these species are so curious in their habits, that whole volumes
have been written about them, and naturalists have spent a lifetime in
their study and observation. Their social and domestic economy is of
the most singular character, more so than that of the bees; and I am
afraid here to give a single trait of their lives, lest I should be led
on to talk too much about them. I need only mention the wonderful nests
or hills which some species build--those great cones of twenty feet in
height, and so strong that wild bulls run up their sides and stand upon
their tops without doing them the least injury! Others make their
houses of cylindrical form, rising several feet from the surface.
Others, again, prefer nesting in the trees, where they construct large
cellular masses of many shapes, suspending them from the highest
branches; while many species make their waxen dwellings in hollow
trunks, or beneath the surface of the earth. There is not a species,
however, whose habits, fully-observed and described, would not strike
you with astonishment. Indeed, it is difficult to believe all that is
related about these insects by naturalists who have made them their
study. One can hardly understand how such little creatures can be
gifted with so much intelligence, or _instinct_, as some choose to call
it.

Man is not the only enemy of the ants. If he were so, it is to be
feared that these small insignificant creatures would soon make the
earth too hot for him. So prolific are they, that if left to themselves
our whole planet would, in a short period, become a gigantic ants' nest?

Nature has wisely provided against the over increase of the ant family.
No living thing has a greater variety of enemies than they. In all the
divisions of animated nature there are ant-destroyers--_ant-eaters_! To
begin with