Outdoor Visits  by Edith M. Patch

Ants with Wings

Ants with wings come out of their homes in the ground. They come from many homes in different places.

All the ants of the same kind come the same day. They fly away together. There are so many ants with wings that they seem like a cloud in the air.


[Illustration]

Soon the ants fly down to the ground and take off their wings. They do not need to use them again.

Bees and beetles and butterflies and other insects keep their wings after they are grown. They do not take them off and throw them away.

But ants have habits of their own. When their wings are grown they fly one day. The father and mother ants fly at the same time. After that they never fly again.

The mother ants tear off their own wings. Then they hunt for good places for new homes. They do not go back to their old homes.


[Illustration]

The mother ants dig holes in new places and lay eggs. Most of the young ants grow up to be workers.

Worker ants do not have any wings. They can never fly away. They stay at home and help the mother ant. They are busy every day.

Their mother lays many, many eggs. The workers take care of the babies.

The young ants are soft and white. They have no legs. The workers take them to rooms in the ground.

Often there is a stone over one room in the home of an ant. That is a good room for baby ants.

Don picked up a stone that was over some ants. He and Nan saw the white ant babies under the stone. The young ants were in cocoons. They looked like little white eggs.


[Illustration]

The worker ants ran very fast to the cocoons. Each worker held one cocoon in her mouth and took it into another room in the ground.