ses now. I want to know 'bout the candy."

"I think that Harry has the floor," said his uncle, reprovingly.

"Well, never mind the houses, and all the other queer things," said
Harry. "Not just now, I mean; I want to know about the candy too."

Uncle Ben settled himself back in his chair, crossed his legs, and
prepared for a story; while Willie hung to his knee on one side, and
Harry stretched himself in the grass on the other, and Roger, the dog,
went off on a butterfly hunt. He evidently was not interested in natural
history.

"Ants are not the only animals that live on candy," said Uncle Ben, as
he pinched Willie's ear. "There are bees, and wasps, and butterflies.
And even such great creatures as bears. For bears sometimes break into
bees' confectionary shop, and gulp down all its contents."

The two boys looked at each other dubiously. What in the world could
Uncle Ben mean?

"It isn't honey you mean?" asked Harry, wonderingly. "That isn't candy."

"It is not cooked candy, I will admit," replied his uncle. "But it is
flower candy. It is the candy that Nature makes, and lays up in her
pretty blossom cups to feed insects that have a sweet tooth."

"But ants don't make honey-comb," cried Willie. "It is the bees do that.
Nobody ever heard of an ant honey-comb."

"Don't be too sure of that, my boy; some folks have heard of many things
that have never travelled to your ears. Why, there is an ant out West
that makes a living honey-comb. Some of the ants themselves are turned
into honey-combs to feed the others during the long winters."

Harry rose to his feet. He could not continue to lie down lazily when
such marvellous stories as these were afloat.

"Living honey-combs!" he ejaculated.

"They are from the West, you know; the land of wonders," explained his
uncle. "They are found in New Mexico. And they were discovered last
summer in Colorado by a Philadelphia gentleman named Dr. McCook. This
gentleman examined their mode of life, and brought some of them home
with him, and tells wonderful stories about them."

"But won't you tell us all about them right away, Uncle Ben?"

"Yes, right away," echoes Willie.

"Well, then," began their uncle, "they live in nests dug in a stony
soil, and having a great many rooms and passages. And in some of these
rooms are found the queerest creatures that were ever heard of. Little
living ants, with half their bodies turned into great bags of honey.
They look exactly like g