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 stimulate thought and discussion, or at least interest, but in no wise divert from his main purpose: to increase knowledge of the natural history of creaturelings that have contributed so much to his own enjoyment of life.

It has been more then thirty-two years—almost a full generation of men—since the author published in the Transactions of the American Entomological Society (Philadephia) his first observations of American ants. Since then he has given to the world in books, in publications of scientific societies, and in magazine articles, his studies of various species, chiefly devoting himself to their habits rather than to their systematic classification. In this volume, Ant Communities, taken together with the first part of Nature's Craftsmen, he presents a substantial summary of these prolonged observations. And he has brought them down to date by associating therewith the latest observations of some of the leading naturalists of the scientific world.