HEM I PT ERA. 12/ 



long in finding it again, in a more interesting character, in ants of 

 different species. 



" Some red ants had built round the foot of a thistle a tube of 

 earth, two inches and a half long by one and a half broad. The 

 ants' nest was below, and communicated directly with rfie cylinder. 

 1 took the stalk, with what surrounded it, and all that the cylinder 

 contained. That portion of the stem which was inside the earthen 

 lube was covered with plant-lice. I very soon saw the ants coming 

 out at the opening I had made at the base ; they were very much 

 astonished to see daylight at that place, and I saw that they lived 

 there with their larvae. They carried these with great haste to the 

 liighest part of the cylinder which had not been altered. In this 

 retreat they were within reach of their plant-lice, and here they fed 

 their young. 



" In other places many stalks of the Euphorbia laden with plant- 

 lice rose in the very centre of an ant-hill belonging to the brown ants. 

 These insects, profiting by the peculiar arrangement of the leaves 

 of this plant, had constructed round eacli branch as many little 

 elongated cases ; and it was here they came to get their food. 

 J Having destroyed one of these cells, the ants forthwith carried off 

 j into their nests their precious animals ; a few days afterwards it was 

 I repaired under my eyes by these insects, and the herd were taken 

 back to their pens. 



" These cases are not always at a few inches from the ground. I 

 saw one five feet above the soil, and this one deserves also to be 

 described. It consisted of a blackish, rather short tube, which was 

 built round a small branch of the poplar at the point where it left the 

 trunk. The ants reached it by the interior of the tree, which was 

 excavated, and without showing themselves, they were able to reach 

 their plant-lice by an opening which they had made in the base of 

 this branch. This tube was formed of rotten wood, of the vegetable 

 earth of this very tree, and I saw many a time the ants bringing little 

 bits in their mouths to repair the breaches I had made in their 

 pavilion. These are not very common traits, and are not of the 

 number of those which can be attributed to an habitual routine.^""^ 



One day, Pierre Huber discovered in a nest of yellow ants a cell 

 containing a mass of eggs having the appearance of ebony. They 

 were surrounded by a number of ants, which appeared to be guarding 

 them, and endeavouring to carry them off 



Huber took possession of the cell, its inhabitants, and of the 



■ P. '* Tr^ite d'Insectologie," &c., pp. iq8- 201, 





