388 THE INSECT WORLD. 





Ants are also very fond of a peculiar liquid which the plant-lic( 

 secrete from a pouch in the abdomen. When they have got posses 

 sion of a plant-louse, they excite it to secrete this liquid, but withou 

 doing it any harm. They carry the plant-lice into the ant-hill, o 

 into private stables. There they keep them., give them their food 

 and suck them. We have already mentioned these curious relation: 

 which are established between ants and plant-lice.* Fig. 367 show 

 an ant thus occupied. The Gallinseda also furnish the ants witl 

 sugary liquids. 



During the cold of winter the ants sleep at the bottom of thei 

 nests, without taking any food. A small number of species only hoi 

 out tlirough the severe season, by shutting themselves up in the an 

 hill with a number of plant-lice. It is thus that they pass the wintt 

 with a supply of food. We must mention, however, that in wan 

 countries the ants do not hybernate. 



We have just described ant society during the quiet periods, whe 

 peace reigns supreme ; but they are not more exempt than otht 

 animals from the necessities and dangers of war. They have a gre£ 

 many enemies among the population of the woods ; they must, thei 

 be prepared to repel their attacks. They display in that the mo: 

 scientific resources of the military art applied to defence. 



It is almost needless to say that the sentinels are, at all time 

 posted at a reasonable distance from the ant-hill, to observe tl 

 environs. When the fortress is unexpectedly attacked, whether 1 

 large insects, Coleoptera for instance, or by the ants from an eig' 

 bouring nest, these vigilant sentinels immediately fall back and gh 

 the alarm to the camp, not, however, without having boldly confrontt 

 the enemy and opposed to him an honourable resistance. Havir 

 re-entered the nest in all haste, they precipitate themselves into tt 

 passages, tapping with their antennae all the ants which they met 

 and thus spreading the alarm in the city. Very soon the agitati( 

 has become general, and thousands of combatants sally forth from tl 

 citadel, ready to repel the attack and make the enemy bite the du; 



The possession of a flock of plant-lice is sometimes a subject 

 discord, and becomes a casus belli between two neighbouring ant-hil 

 But, usually, the war has for its object to make prisoners in oth 

 nests, and to carry off part of the inhabitants as slaves. This is t 

 origin of mixed ant-hills., which, independently of their natui 

 founders, contain one or two foreign species, helots whom the co 

 querors have taken away from their birth-place, to make of tht 



* See the Order Hemiptera, supra. — Ed. 



