138 NATURAL HISTORY. [CH. VII, 



milch kine they remove from their native plants 

 and domesticate in their habitaiions, affording, as 

 Huber justly observes, an example of almost human 

 industry and sag^acity. On turning up the nest of 

 the yellow ant, this naturalist one day saw a variety 

 of aphides either wandering about in the different 

 chambers, or attached to the roots of plants which 

 penetrated into the interior. The ants appeared to 

 be extremely jealous of their stock of cattle ; they 

 followed them about and caressed them, whenever 

 they wished for the honeyed juice, which the apliis 

 never refused to yield. On the slightest appearance 

 of danger, they took them up in their mouths, and 

 gently removed them to a more sheltered and more 

 secure spot. They dispute with other ants for 

 them, and in short watch them as keenly as any 

 pastoral people would guard the herds which form 

 their wealth. Other species, which do not gather 

 the aphides together in their own nest, still seem to 

 look on them as private property ; they set sentinels 

 to protect their places of resort and drive away 

 other ants ; and, what is still more extraordinary, 

 they enclose them as a farmer does his sheep, to 

 preserve them not only from rival ants, but also 

 from the natural enemies of the aphis. 



If the branch on which the aphides feed be con- 

 veniently situated, the ants have recourse to a very 

 effectual expedient to keep off all trespassers : they 

 construct around the branch containing the aphides 

 a tube of earth, or some other material, and in this 

 enclosure, formed near the nest and generally com- 

 municating with it, they secure their cattle against 

 all interlopers. 



The brown ant has been observed by Huber to 

 build a chamber around the stem of a thistle, in such 

 a way that the stalk passed through the centre, sc 

 that from their ant-hill they had only to climb the 

 thistle-stalk, in order to enter this cattle-fold, which 

 was suspended in mid-air. The interior, smooth 



