THE WINTER BY ANTS. 73 



The fact that Huber found eggs of aphides in ants' nests, 

 though confirmed by Schmarda, did not attract so much 

 notice as many of the other interesting facts which they 

 have recorded ; because if aphides are kept by ants in 

 their nests, it seems only natural that their eggs should 

 also occur. The above case, however, is much more 

 remarkable. Here are aphides, not living in the ants* 

 nests, but outside, on the leaf-stalks of plants. The 

 eggs are laid early in October on the food-plant of the 

 insect. They are of no direct use to the ants, yet they 

 are not left where they are laid, exposed to the severity 

 of the weather and to innumerable dangers, but are 

 brought into their nests by the ai;ts, and tended 

 by them with the utmost care through the long winter 

 months until the following March, when the young ones 

 are brought out and again placed on the young shoots of 

 the daisy. This seems to me a most remarkable case 

 of prudence. Our ants may not perhaps lay up food 

 for the winter ; but they do more, for they keep during 

 six months the eggs which will enable them to procure 

 food during the following summer, a case of prudence 

 unexampled in the animal kingdom. 



The nests of our common yellow ant (Lasius fiavus) 

 contain in abundance four or five species of aphis, 

 more than one of which appears to be as yet undescribed. 

 In addition, however, to the insects belonging to this 

 family, there are a large number of others which live 

 habitually in ants' nests, so that we may truly say that 

 our English ants possess a much greater variety of 



