136 NATURAL HISTORY. [cH. VH. 



ing-, another is eng-aged in bearing away the negroes, 

 who immediately begin constructing- a new dwelling 

 at a considerable distance from the scene of com- 

 bat." 



Such is the extraordinary recital contained in that 

 delightful work of Ruber's, every fact of which has 

 been confirmed by the subsequent observations of 

 the accurate and learned Latreille. It would seem 

 that the negro and miner ants are both occasionally 

 enslaved and dwell together in the sanguine ant-hills. 

 And Huber has brought up legionaries and sanguine 

 ants, which are both slave-makers, with negroes, in 

 one common dwelling. 



The wonders of the ant-tribe are far from being 

 exhausted; we have seen them subjugating their 

 own species, and reducing them to the condition of 

 domestic slaves. But a more singular trait in their 

 manners remains to be stated. They keep and feed 

 certain other insects, from which they extract a 

 sweet and nutritious liquid, in the same manner as 

 we obtain milk from cows. There are two species 

 of insects from which the ant-tribe abstract this 

 juice — the aphides, or plant-lice, and the gall-insects. 

 Linnaeus, and after him other naturalists, have called 

 these insects the milch cattle of the ants ; and the 

 term is not inapplicable. In the proper season, any 

 person, who may choose to be at the pains of watch- 

 ing their proceedings, may see, as Linnaeus says, 

 the ants ascending trees that they may milk their 

 cows, the aphides. The substance which is here 

 called milk is a saccharine fluid, which these insects 

 secrete ; it is scarcely inferior to honey in sweetness, 

 and issues in limpid drops from the body of the 

 insect, by two little tubes placed one on each side 

 just above the abdomen. The aphides insert their 

 suckers into the tender bark of a tree, and employ 

 themselves without intermission in absorbing its 

 sap; which, having passed through the digestive 

 system of the insect, is discharged by the organs 



