This is a rare book for the layman — reliable, readable, enjoyable; a book informed with the author's deep love and knowledge of the kingdom of the ants. The ubiquitous ant — admired by Solomon for her industry and by Herodotus for her gold mining; said to keep cows, to weave, to raise slaves; recently reported to be on the march through parts of the southeastern United States — is here described concisely and authoritatively. The book tells of many species: the blood-red ant queen stealing pupae from another colony, the Amazon ant unable to feed herself, the Argentine ant on a far-flung war-path. It explains castes and classes, warfare and hunting, division of labor, mental faculties, sex, the seasonal rhythm, the origin of the soldier; and it reports what science has learned about how ants communicate with one another, how they recognize nest mates, sound an alarm, find their way home. A classic in ant lore, this book by one of the world's leading scientists in the field opens to the general reader a society as complex, as fascinating as our own.