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 gently with her antennae; whereupon the latter, dutifully and with the utmost good will, set herself to the task of making her mistress' toilet, licking and polishing her from head to foot, and ending up by feeding her with a drop of honey just as she would have fed one of the helpless larvæ.

Thoroughly refreshed, Formica now passed gayly through several galleries and presently entered the great central chamber of the citadel—an apartment some five or six inches across, nearly circular, and supported by half a dozen stout pillars. This chamber was thronged. It was the life center of the citadel. Every here and there were clusters of eggs, or groups of larvæ and pupæ, surrounded by their guards. Active little pallid-colored wood lice, the scavengers of the nest, scurried busily hither and thither, as completely ignored as the street cleaners are in the thoroughfares of a busy human city.

At the very center of the chamber was the great queen mother of the tribe, a huge ant more than double the size of any of her subjects. She was surrounded by a dense crowd of attendants, all with their heads turned toward her as if in respectful homage, waiting to feed her or cleanse her or carry away her eggs whenever she saw fit to lay them, or to perform eagerly any service