HEMIPTERA. 125 



employs its antennae, which swell somewhat towards their extremities, 

 in conveying this droplet to its mouth, and causes it to enter it by 

 pressing it first on one side, then on the other, using its antennae as 

 if they were fingers. The greater number of ants seek them on those 

 plants on which they usually fix themselves— the lowest herbs, as 

 well as the highest trees. There are some, however, which never 

 leave their place of abode, and never go out to the chase. These 

 are the little ants, of a pale yellow colour, rather transparent, and 

 covered with hairs, which are extremely numerous in our meadows 

 and orchards. These subterranean creatures are very noxious to the 

 farmer. Pierre Huber often wondered how they subsisted, and with 

 what food they could provision themselves, without quitting their 

 gloomy habitations. Having one day turned up the earth of which 

 a habitation was composed, in order to discover if any treasure were 

 to be found stowed away there, he found nothing but plant-lice. Of 

 these the greater number were fixed to the roots of the trees which 

 hung down from the roof of their subterranean nest ; others were 

 wandering about among the ants. These latter, moreover, set about 

 milking their nurses, as usual, and with the same success. To verify 

 his discovery, he dug up a great number of nests of the yellow ant, 

 and invariably found aphides in them. So as to study the relations 

 which must exist between these insects, he shut up ants with their 

 friends, the plant-lice, in a glazed box, placing at the bottom of the 

 box, earth, mixed with the roots of some plants, whose branches 

 vegetated outside the box. He watered this ant-hill from time to 

 time, and thus both the animals and the plants found in his apparatus 

 sufficient nourishment. 



" The ants," he says, " did not endeavour in the least to make 

 their escape. They seemed to want for nothing, and to be quite 

 content. They tended their larvae and females with the same 

 affection they would have shown in their usual ant-hill ; they took 

 great care of the plant-lice, and never did them any harm. These, 

 on the other hand, did not seem to fear the ants ; they allowed 

 themselves to be moved about from one place to another, and when 

 they were set down they remained in the place chosen for them by 

 their guardians. When the ants wished to move them to a fresh 

 place, they began by caressing them with their antennae, as if to 

 request them to abandon their roots or to withdraw their trunk from 

 the cavity in which it was inserted ; then they took them gently 

 above or below the abdomen with their jaws, and carried them with 

 the same care they would have bestowed on the larvae of their own 

 species. I saw the same ant take three plant-lice in succession, each 



