Life in the Insect World

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: EVENING THIRD. ANTS. Harriet. Here we are, Aunt Mary; lessons finished, books put away, and all ready to hear about the ants. Aunt M. That is right, business first and pleasure afterwards. I am glad to see you. I have always felt a particular interest in ants. There were a number of ant-hills in our...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: EVENING THIRD. ANTS. Harriet. Here we are, Aunt Mary; lessons finished, books put away, and all ready to hear about the ants. Aunt M. That is right, business first and pleasure afterwards. I am glad to see you. I have always felt a particular interest in ants. There were a number of ant-hills in our school- house yard, and when I was quite a little girl, I used to take much pleasure in watching them, and was greatly distressed when any of my mischievous school mates kicked them over for the purpose of teasing me. I thought how the poor ants must be dismayed when they found a shower of sand coming down upon them, and saw thus destroyed in a moment the patient labor of many days. There were two or three of these hills to whichI had taken a particular fancy, and considered especially my own. Every day I watched my little favorites, until I had learned to regard them with a sort of motherly affection. I frequently carried cake and sugar with me from home, which I scattered sparingly around their habitations. One morning I filled my little paper with sugar, concluding my friends should have a generous treat. I strewed it thickly over the pavement, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing the whole swarm of ants partaking of the delicious food. After remaining with them as long as I could, I left them still enjoying their feast. The next morning I started full of interest to see how they fared after their repast; when lo what was my consternation, on approaching the hills, to find them still covered and surrounded, not with living, eating ants, hut with the dead bodies of my little favorites, increased to nearly twice their natural size. The greedy little beings had stuffed themselves to death, and I was the cause of all this mischief. I believe I never fed an ant a...