52 



GENERAL BIOLOGY 



happens, but are finally gathered together by the ants for 

 the winter in little heaps, and stored in their galleries, or 

 sometimes in little chambers made by widening a gallery as 

 if for storage purposes. If a nest is disturbed, the ants will 



commonly seize the aphid eggs, 

 often several at a grasp, and carry 

 them away. In winter they are 

 often taken to the deepest parts of 

 the nest. . . as if for some par- 

 tial protection against frost: but 

 on bright days in spring they are 

 brought up, sometimes, within half 

 an inch or less of the surface, some- 

 times even scattered about in the 

 sunshine, and carried back again at 

 night — a practice probably to be 

 understood as a means of hastening 

 their hatching. I "have repeatedly 

 seen these ants in confinement with 

 a little mass of aphid eggs, turn the eggs about one by 

 one with their mandibles, licking each carefully as if to 



Fig. 39. Corn root aphis 

 {Aphis maidiradicis) , wing- 

 less female x 14 (from 

 Forbes.) The two black 

 processes at the rear are 

 Cornicles. 



Fig. 40. Corn root aphis, winged female x 16 (from Forbes) 



