238 RELATION OF ANTS 
gaged in their customary avocations. In 
so reduced a temperature, they would 
be exposed to the horrors of famine, were 
they not supplied with: food by the 
pucerons, who, by an admirable concur- 
rence of circumstances, which we cannot 
attribute to chance, become torpid at 
precisely the same degree of cold as the 
ants, and recover from this state also, at 
the same time: the ants, therefore, always 
find them when they need them. 
Those ants that do not possess the 
knowledge of the mode of assembling 
these insects, are, at least, acquainted 
with their retreat ; they follow them to 
the feet of the trees, and the branches of 
the shrubs they before frequented, pass 
at the first degree of frost along the 
hedges, following the paths which con- 
duct to these insects, and bring back 
to the republic a small quantity of honey; 
a very little sufficing for their support 
in winter. 
As soon as the ants recover from their 
torpid state, they venture forth to proz 
