HYMENOPTERA. 391 



out their bodies as far as possible (keeping on tbe bank the 

 while), to lend a helping hand to their drowning friends. 

 Nevertheless, the salvage did not progress much, when the ants, 

 which were getting very uneasy, conceived a happy thought. A 

 few were seen to run to the ant-hill and then to reappear. 

 They brought with them a squad of eight grenadiers, who threw 

 themselves into the water without any hesitation, and who, 

 swimming vigorously, seized with their pincers all the drowning 

 ants, and brought them all on to terra firma. Eleven, half-dead, 

 were thus brought to shore, that is, to the rim of the basin. 

 They would probably all of them have succumbed, if their com- 

 panions had not hastened to lend them assistance. They rolled 

 them in the dust, they brushed them, they rubbed them, they 

 stretched themselves on their dying companions to warm them ; 

 then they rolled them and rubbed them again. Four were 

 restored to life. A fifth, half-recovered, and still moving its legs 

 and its antennao a little, was taken home with all sorts of pre- 

 cautions. The six others were dead. They were carried into 

 the ant-hill by their afflicted companions. One thinks one must 

 be dreaming when one reads such things as this, and yet Dupont t 

 de Nemours tells us : "I have seen it ! " 



Ants are also very fond of a peculiar liquid which the plant- lice 

 secrete from a pouch in the abdomen. When they have got pos- 

 session of a plant-louse, they excite it to secrete this liquid, but 

 without doing it any harm. They carry the plant-lice into the 

 ant-hill, or into private stables. There they keep them, give 

 them their food, and suck them. We have already mentioned these 

 curious relations which are established between ants and plant- 

 lice. Fig. 367 shows an ant thus occupied. The Gallinsecta* also 

 furnish the ants with sugary liquids. 



During the cold of winter, the ants sleep at the bottom of 

 their nests, without taking any food. A small number of species 

 only hold out through the severe season, by shutting themselves 

 up in the ant-hill with a number of plant- lice. It is thus that 

 they pass the winter, with a supply of food. We must mention, 

 however, that in warm countries the ants do not hybernate. 



We have just described ant society during the quiet periods 

 * See the Order Hemiptera, supra. ED. 



