98 BRITISH AMIDES. 



were looked on as more or less romantic tales. 

 Accordingly, in the commencement of his history of the 

 indigenous ants of Geneva he affirms that he has neither 

 been led aside by a fertile imagination, nor by a love 

 of the marvellous.* 



In this history Huber shows the way in which certain 

 ants construct covered passages of earth or other 

 materials through which they can, in all weathers, visit 

 their Aphides, which live on the plants growing on 

 the surface above, at short distances from their nests. 

 I cannot myself prove that any of our British ants 

 form such curious corridors ; but Huber found in the 

 neighbourhood of Geneva that a red ant constructed 

 spherical lodgments over such thistle heads as were 

 loaded with Aphides. In these chambers, which were 

 formed of mud, the ants securely drew their sustenance 

 from the plant-lice. On one occasion he discovered an 

 earthern cylinder, 2 J inches by 1^ inch in size, which 

 had been built near the root of a thistle, and the 

 cylinder contained many Aphides and their attendant 

 ants. But these tunnels, it appears, are not confined 

 to the surface of the ground ; for Huber found one 

 five feet above the level of the soil, which enclosed a 

 small branch of a poplar tree. The ants travelled 

 through the decayed and hollow stem and emerged at 

 a junction of this branch, immediately close to which 

 an opening appeared. This was the entrance to a 

 •' blackish tunnel," within which they could feed 

 without disturbance. Numerous such instances are 

 related by Huber; and he adds that some covered 

 ways were fabricated out of decayed wood instead of 

 clay. 



Huber' s words are remarkable and worthy of quota- 

 tion ; since they state as facts that which is very diffi- 

 cult to realise without personal proof. f 



rim,' iIuUt (the younger), 'Recherches but lea moaurs des 

 fourmis indigenes,' Paris: also a translation of the Bame, by Johnson, 

 ' Natural History of Ants,' London, 1" 

 f Pierre Huber, 1. c, ' Traml./ Johnson, pp. 228—231. 



