44 ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP 



they convey them inside their nest. The aphides 

 selected feed on the sap of grass and roots, a nutri- 

 ment that lies ready to hand without troubling the 

 captives to step out of doors, the subterranean 

 chambers and corridors being constructed in the 

 midst of the vegetation required. Formica show 

 themselves good and attentive masters, and use their 

 aphides with unvarying kindness and consideration. 

 Ants actually breed their cattle, rearing them 

 through the different stages of existence, hatching 

 them out as though they were their own with the 

 utmost care and tenderness. A fact has been dis- 

 covered by Sir John Lubbock in connection with 

 this habit, which he describes as one of the most 

 remarkable he knows in the whole history of animal 

 life. Certain aphides live not in an ants' nest, but 

 outside on the leaf-stalks of plants. The wise and 

 judicious cattle-breeders do not think of allowing the 

 eggs laid by the aphides in the autumn to remain 

 exposed to the severity of the approaching winter 

 and innumerable dangers. They collect them and 

 bring them into their nest, and the young are tended 

 and fed and kept from harm by the ants until the fol- 

 lowing spring, when they are carried again to the 

 food-plants on which they were at first deposited. 

 During all this period of watchful superintendence 

 the aphides are not of the slightest use to their 

 attendants, who receive no immediate return for their 

 services. They lavish this care upon these insects 

 with the expectation of future payment,: in order to 

 have a fresh stock of aphides in the spring. In 

 this way they secure adequate supplies of sweet liquid 



