HEMIPTEEA. 129 



The red ant is singularly adroit in seizing the droplet left it 

 by the plant-louse. According to Pierre Huber, it employs its 

 antennae, which swell somewhat towards their extremities, in con- 

 veying 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 on 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, and 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 habita- 

 tions. Having one day turned up the earth of which a habi- 

 tation 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 in them aphides. 

 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 



K 



