A unique and really detailed work on ants and their contribution to nature - chapters include warfare, pastoral ants, the mushroom growers, the secrets of the formicary, the nest, communication and orientation, agricultural ants, and more. Here are the essential features of the life of the ants, a life incontestably superior to that of the bees, which is precarious in the extreme. In his unique studies of the social insects: the bee, the termite (or white ant) and the ant, Maurice Maeterlinck conveys not only accurate pictures of his subjects, but a rather remarkable development of his own philosophy. Winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize for Literature, Maeterlinck (1862-1949) was a Belgian writer of poetry, a wide variety of essays, and symbolic dramas, including Pelléas et Mélisande (1892).