Larvae of Membracis serving as Milk-cattle to a 

 Brazilian Species of Honey-bees 1 ). 



With 3 Figures. 



The connection between the ants and the Aphides has long since been gene- 

 rally known ; in the proper season we always find ants very busy on those trees 

 and plants on which the Aphides abound, and if we examine more closely we 

 discover that their object in thus attending upon them is to obtain the saccharine 

 fluid which they secrete from two setiform tubes placed one on each side just 

 above the end of the abdomen, and which may well be denominated their milk 

 (Kirby and Spence, "Introduction to Entomology", -jth edition, p. 335). It has also 

 long been observed and described, that not only do the Aphides yield this repast 

 to the ants, but also the Cocci, and that in the tropical regions of India and Brazil, 

 where no Aphides occur, the ants milk the larvae of several species of Cercopis 

 and Membracis (Kirby and Spence, p. 336; Westwood, "Modern Classification of 

 Insects," II. p. 434). Recently Prof. F. Delpino, of Vallombrosa, near Florence, 

 observed the same connection between Formica pubescens and Tettigometra 

 virescens ("Bolletino Entomologico", anno IV. Settembre 1872). But, as far as I 

 know, it has never been observed hitherto that honey-bees also nourish themselves 

 by the secretion of certain hemipterous insects. Hence the following observation, 

 made some months ago by my brother, Fritz Miiller (Itajahy, Prov. St. Catherina, 

 Brazil) may be worth publishing. 



Among the great number of species of Melipona and Trigona which, in the 

 tropical and subtropical regions of America, as is known, occupy the place of our 

 hive-bee, there is one small species of Trigona which has only once been found 

 by my brother on flowers (of Sicyos angulata), and which seems to nourish itself 

 in a very strange manner. He once found a multitude of them spread over the 

 body, already strongly putrifying, of a large toad; the interior of the large open 

 mouth of the toad was filled with these bees, probably sucking the putrid juice 

 of the dead body. On another occasion he saw a great number of the same 



i) Nature, a weekly illustrated Journal of Science. Vol. VIII. 1873. Pg- 2O1 2O2 - Published by 

 Hermann Miiller, Lippstadt. 



Fritz Miillers gesammelte Schriften. 3 1 



