the after-pleasure of creeping under it. Others are bigots to geographical discovery, and are constantly wandering into dangerous places, whence they escape only by a series of miracles. Of some a pastoral life is all the joy, for they keep herds of green aphides — better known as “blight” — which they milk regularly for the sake of the sweet leaf-juice they secrete. Others, again, are hunters and live on the produce of the chase. They organize foraging parties and issue forth a host of Lilliputians to drag home a Brobdignag cricket; or, marshalled on the war-trail, file out to plunder the larders of their neighbors. The bulk, however, are omnivorous and jacks-of-all-trades, with a decided leaning towards vegetable food and excavation; and it is in this, the enormous consumption of seeds in the ant nurseries, that this family contributes its quota to the well-being of creation, a quota which after all scarcely raises it, in point of usefulness, to the level of butterflies and moths — popularly supposed to be the idlest and least useful of created insects. It ought, however, to be kept in mind that butterflies are only beautified caterpillars; and when we see them flying about, we should remember that their work is over and they are enjoying their vacation. They have been raised to the Upper House. From being laborious managers they have become the sleeping partners in a thriving business. While they were caterpillars they worked hard and well; so Nature, to reward them, dresses them up to look attractive, and sends them out as butterflies — to get married. The ants, on the other hand, did no work when they were grubs, so they have to do a good deal in their maturity. They have to provide food for successive broods of hungry youngsters, who, when grown
