424 



THE ANIMALS AND MAN 



mite-loving) insects have been recorded by collectors as 

 living habitually in the nests of ants and termites. Many 

 of them (they are mostly small beetles and flies) have lost 

 their wings and have had their bodies otherwise considerably 

 modified, often in such wise that they come greatly to 

 resemble in external appearance 

 the ants with which they live. 

 The relations between ants 

 and aphids (plant lice) are 

 often referred to in popular nat- 

 ural histories and books about 



insects as examples of Symbiosis FlG - 214 - Termitogaster texana, 

 r i TT r a rove-beetle (Staphvlinidae) 



of unusual interest. Jnfortu- which i ives in t he n p ests of th e 



nately, however, not enough termite, Eutermes Cinereus, in 



careful study has been given Texas - (Natural size i 1-2 



,. ,, mm; after Bowes.) 



to many of these apparently 



true examples of symbiosis to enable us to 

 be certain of the truth of the alleged care 

 and guarding of the ant-cows, as Linnaeus 

 called these aphids, by their milkers, the 

 ants. That ants do swarm about the aphids 

 to lap up the "honey dew" excreted by 

 them is wholly true, and the very presence 



FIG. 215. Aenig- o f the sharp-jawed and pugnacious ants 



mails blaltoides, i r ,1 i 



must keep away many enemies of the de- 



a Phorid fly, J J 



which lives in fenseless plant lice, toothsome morsels for 

 the nest of the the lady-bird beetles, flower-fly larvae and 



a.nt, Formica fits- ,1 j 



. ^ J , other predatory insects. 



ca, in Denmark. -> 



(Thirteen times In the case of the interesting relations 



natural size; between the corn root aphid, Aphis maidis- 



radici, of the Mississippi Valley States, 



and the little brown ant, Lasius bnmneus, however, 



we have the careful observations of Professor Forbes to rely 



on. In the Mississippi Valley, this aphid deposits in autumn 



its eggs in the ground in corn fields, often in the galleries 



