128 NATURE STUDY. 



nish transportation for them. There were also many of the 

 Yellow Meadow ants moving about over the stone, and go- 

 ing and coming between the earth beneath and the sur- 

 face above. 



Plainl}-, the ants were giving their "cows" an airing, 

 much as nurses take out small children on a warm spring 

 day. I lifted a smaller stone and struck the boulder sharp- 

 ly, giving it a considerable jarring. Immediately the ants 

 hastened to the aphids, each seizing one in its mandibles 

 and carrying it quickly below. In a few minutes there 

 was not an aphid in sight, and only an ant here and there, 

 moving about as if to make sure that none of the aphids 

 had been overlooked. Returning an hour later, I found 

 that the aphids had been brought back to finish their sun 

 bath, while the ants were moving leisurely about, as when 

 I first observed them. 



One day in the first week in May, as I was turning 

 stones in search of insects, I came upon a colony or " herd " 

 of these white aphids, clinging in rows by their sharp 

 beaks to a juicy root, evidently of some herbaceous plant 

 which had not yet sent its scape or stalk above ground. 



At that stage I could not determine the order of plant to 

 which the root belonged, but I removed a portion to a box, 

 together with as manj- of the ants as I could secure, and 

 carried the collection home. There I carefully detached 

 some of the aphids and placed them at the opposite end 

 of the box, several inches away. In a short time the ants 

 had found them and replaced them upon the root, where 

 they went on sucking the juices as if nothing unusual had 

 happened. The box was purposely left open, and the next 

 day only the dried root remained. The ants and their 

 " cows " had disappeared. 



In June white aphids were found in abundance on the 

 roots of the cultivated lettuce in the garden, and the Yel- 

 low Meadow ants were numerous about them. 



