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SEVENTEENTH Report STATE ENToMoLocist oF MINNESoTA—1918 
Bb) 
For an exhaustive account of ants, the student is referred to 
that excellent work of W. M. Wheeler, “Ants, Their Structure, De- 
velopment and Behavior’—Columbia University Press, 1910. 
Fig. 90. Camponotus herculeanus L. sub species 
pennsylvanicus De Geer. 
FORMICIDAE 
With the characteristics of the sub-order 
In this, the only family of the suborder, we find familiar and in- 
-eresting species, as well as exotic forms exhibiting most wonderful 
traits. 
Lasius niger, var. americanus is the little ant of our lawns and 
walks. It is sometimes called the “corn louse ant” because it acts as 
nurse for the corn root louse, Aphis maidiradicis. Packard says of 
this species “The little yellow ant, abundant in parks and about houses 
in New England generally swarm on the afternoon of some hot day 
in the first week in September, when the air is filled toward sunset with 
myriads of them. The females after their marriage flight in the air 
may then be seen entering the ground to lay their eggs for new 
colonies.” 
An account of the relations of ants to aphids or plant lice might 
easily be sufficient to fill a good sized volume. The basis of this amic- 
able association lies in the fact that the sweet nectar elaborated from 
sap by aphids is very attractive to ants, and they frequently resort to 
tapping the plant lice with their antennae to induce them to give up the 
liquid. This caress or tapping frequently results in a louse emitting, 
not through the honey-tubes as originally supposed, but through the 
anal opening, a drop or two of this fluid, which is eagerly eaten by the 
ant. This process is sometimes alluded to as “milking the aphids,” and 
