SILVER MINES OF ANDREASBERG. 141 



lightly with their antennae. The fact is that the ants were milking their 

 cows. The aphides would eject a drop of limpid fluid from their tails, 

 which was greedily devoured by their visitois. The latter appeared to 

 know how to obtain a fresh suppl}-, for they would gently tickle the 

 sides of the aphides with their antennEe, and this would soon bring forth 

 a drop of the rauch-coveted fluid, which was eagerly conveyed to their 

 mouths, and then they moved quickly to another and treated it in the 

 same way with the same result. The number of ants thus employed 

 was so great, that the tree seemed to be alive with them and the aphides. 

 Two currents of ants were constantly moving, one up and the other 

 down the trunk of the tree, which are continued without any intermis- 

 sion during the night as well as the day. — This phenomenon may be 

 witnessed almost every day in any garden on plants Avhich harbor the 

 aphides, and last summer I surprized and delighted a lady by exhibiting 

 it to her in her own garden. 



About the same time that I met with the ants on the pine tree, I ob- 

 served that the same species, but from diflerent colonies, were visiting 

 Iwo pear trees that grew near the pine. Presuming that their object 

 was to partake of the fruit that grew thereon, I paid but little attention 

 to them, but finding that they continued their visits after the fruit was 

 removed, I examined and found at the base of the petoile of the leaf, a 

 very small species of the aphides, on the exudation of which the ants 

 were feeding. 



The ants are very careful of these little animals, and they are even 

 taken by the ants into their nests, and there fed and nurtured with the 

 same assiduity thai a dairy maid does her cows, and for the very same 

 reason. 



These aphides, of vvhich there are numerous species, may be seen 

 on neaily all trees and large plants. Every rose bush is full of them. 

 Their history is most curious, which I shall send for the Journal, after 

 I have given one more No. of Ant-iana. 



RusTicus. 



THE SILVER MIXES OF ANDREASBERG, IN THE HARZ. 



BY PROF. CHAS. A. HAY, OF OETTYSBHRG. 



We had spent Walpurgis-nacht upon the Brocken. That was the 

 night preceding the first of May, the time when the whole tribe of 

 witches comes riding through the air from every direction, and assem- 

 bles upon the Brocken, the highest peak of the cluster of mountains in 

 north Germany, called the IIarz. On the evening before, the sun had 

 set in a bank of mist that obscured the landscape, and gave him a dis- 



