up, will join them in feeding their younger brothers and sisters; or, if they are of the favored few, will enter ant life with wings, and be blown away by the wind a few hundred yards, to become the founders of new colonies. The actual balance of work done by caterpillars and ants respectively is indeed about equal; the only difference being that caterpillars check vegetation by feeding themselves, and ants by feeding their babies; while the balance of mischief done is very much against the ants. The commonest of all the Indian ants, or at any rate the most conspicuous, are the black ones, to be found marauding on every sideboard, and whose normal state seems to be one of criminal trespass. These from their size are perhaps also the most interesting, as it requires little exertion to distinguish between the classes of individuals that in the aggregate make up a nest of ants. There is the blustering soldier, or policeman ant, who goes about wagging his great head and snapping his jaws at nothing; furious exceedingly when insulted, but as a rule preferring to patrol in shady neighborhoods, the backwaters of life, where he can peer idly into cracks and holes. See him as he saunters up the path, pretending to be on the lookout for suspicious characters, stopping strangers with impertinent inquiries, leering at that modest wire-worm who is hurrying home. Watch him swaggering to meet a friend whose beat ends at the corner, and with whom he will loiter for the next hour. Suddenly a blossom falls from the orange-tree overhead. His display of energy is now terrific. He dashes about in all directions, jostles the foot-passengers, and then pretends that they had attacked him. He continually loses his own balance, and has to scramble out of worm-holes and dusty
