200 SEVENTEENTH Report STATE ENTOMOLOGIST oF MINNESOTA—1918§ 
mer, the occupants will be seen running excitedly about, carrying the 
yellowish pupae in their jaws. These pupae are popularly supposed to 
be the eggs. 
Historically, ants are more prominent than any other insect, their 
industry is often cited, and the habits of ants, in colony life, have been 
made the object of profound study. Scholars have marveled at their 
seeming intelligence evidenced by a “language” (an apparent communi- 
cation by means of their antennae), by their care of aphids from which 
they obtain a pleasing nectar, by their enslaving ants of other colonies, 
by their storing vegetable tissue in their nests, which later forms an 
Fig. 87. Lasiuws sp. female. 
excellent culture for the growth of a fungus used by the ants as food. 
Recognition of friends even after separation, is effected, as above 
indicated, by antennal touch; and an ant in distress causes solicitude 
amongst the others. On the other hand, they are equally quick in 
recognizing enemies, or ants from another colony, and such recogni- 
tion means a battle royal. 
Further examples of what was regarded by early observers as 
intelligence on the part of ants are not lacking; mud “sheds” are some- 
times built by them over colonies of aphids, feeding in the open air, 
thus protecting these insects from which they obtain nectar; the ant 
genus Lasius carries plant lice to suitable plants where an abundance 
of food is assured, and it is claimed, in the autumn, takes the eggs of 
aphids into its burrow for protection against winter cold. 
