178 The Book of Bugs. 



the table for dessert. McCook says they are good, and 

 that the honey has a pleasant tartness, but adds that he 

 does not think that rearing them for market will ever 

 become a great industry. 



Not only do plants secrete honey dew, but aphides, or 

 plant-lice, suck the vegetable juices, convert them into 

 sweet liquid, and give down a drop or two when tickled 

 by ants' antennae, just as cows give down milk. When- 

 ever an ant finds one of these plant-lice it says, " Nice 

 aphis, nice aphis! Yes, oo was a nice old aphis," and 

 strokes and pets it till the creature exudes its drop of 

 syrup. Some ants are like the Indians, and take their 

 chances of running across a good thing, but others, more 

 civilized, keep aphides in herds, build underground stables 

 for them and covered ways up the stalks of plants, so that 

 no harm may come to them. As I told you, certain 

 generations of aphides are winged. Since they might fly 

 away the ants tear their wings off, leaving a hole in the 

 top of the stable so the undomesticated male aphides may 

 come in when they want to. Just before frost the female 

 aphis lays her eggs, and the worker-ants gather around 

 her and seem to comfort and stimulate her in her task, 

 while they carry off the eggs and store them in the nest. 

 And then when the eggs are laid she can go hang for all 

 they care ; they're done with her. She is left to perish in 

 the frost. They don't see as they are called upon to do 

 anything in the matter. Her sphere of usefulness was 

 ended, and if they had to take care of every old, played- 

 out bug that came along- Why, mercy me ! 



Delightfully human, aren't they? 



The aphides have very formidable enemies, which the 

 ants fight as men fight wolves and enemies of the flock. 

 There is the ichneumon fly, that asks nothing better than 

 to lay an egg or two in their soft bodies, and there is the 



