came her
turn, the child could not tell even the little she knew.

But Betty, who loved everything in the out-of-door world, forgot herself
and her fright in the true love which she had for natural history. She
said she had spent hours in a neighborhood of ants, near the doorways
they had in the ground. Some of the doorways were large, and some were
small, and the little ants who went in and out of the doors carried off
the pieces of cake she fed to them. Sometimes the crumbs were three or
four times as big as the ants. She had seen two little ants attack a
large piece of cake, but it proved too much for them, so one mounted
guard over it while the other scurried off. In a few moments it came
back with a whole squad of ants, who surrounded the cake and pushed and
pulled with all their might. They actually got it to the door, Betty
said, and after that she could see it no more. Then Betty spoke a little
wistfully: "If only I had been an ant I could have gone down after it. I
could have seen what they did with it, sir."

"Well, my dear," said Ben Gile, "if you want to see what they do, start
a colony of them some day in a glass case. That will solve a good many
of your problems. And now, what else?"

"I saw them doing a good deal that was interesting, sir, but I couldn't
understand it."

"It's your turn, Jack. We will come back to Betty by-and-by."

"I found out, sir, that in every ant colony there are always three kinds
of ants--the queens, the males, and the workers. It's much like what you
told us of the bees. And it seemed to me, sir, every time I looked at
them, that they were happy together, busy with their work and never
quarrelling with one another. I suppose they were happy because each one
had some special work to do. I looked it all up in the books, and I
found that some are born queens, to be waited on, while others are born
workers, to do the serving. But they are all contented.

"The queen ant is not a real queen ruling a little kingdom; she is the
mother ant, and lays all the eggs. She is well cared for and protected
by the workers. These are the active little ants who do the work. They
are happy, too, running about, digging new passageways, clearing the
paths to their front doors, and bringing in food, which they store in
their granaries. Some ants, sir, build their tunnels very deep
underground. A doorway opens into a wide gallery, from which others
branch and wind their way down into the dark groun