338 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OP ANIMALS. CHAP. X. 



or for some other object. When it is considered, in 

 short, that from these honey-flies the ants derive almost 

 the whole nourishment necessary for themselves and 

 their larvae, we cannot wonder at their anxiety about 

 them ; since the wealth and prosperity of the community 

 is in proportion to the number of their cattle.* 



(339.) In reference to Indian Aphides, general Hard-r 

 wicke confirms the foregoing account in all its details ; 

 he further notices a particular krge black ant of India, 

 which, with unusually provident care, constructs its nest 

 at the root of the plant upon which its favourite species 

 of Aphis resides. We owe, also, to this enthusiastic 

 and distinguished naturalist, a knowledge of the singular 

 fact that the honey-like secretion of the Aphides, in- 

 some parts of India, is so abundantly cast upon the 

 neighbouring plants, that the natives collect it when dry, 

 and sell it in the country bazaars as a sweetmeat. The 

 General kept some of this conserve, in a tin box, for near 

 eight years, without its losing any of its sweetness, f 



(340.) The ants of Tropical America derive their 

 honey from another family of insects ; a fact which, 

 being entirely new to science, is now first stated upon our 

 own authority. The numerous 

 and grotesquely formed family 

 of Membracidce (fig. 83.) is 

 most abundant in the regions 

 of Brazil, where they supply 

 the place of the Aphides, 

 not one species of which did 

 we discover. Many of these 

 little MembracidcB live in fa- 

 milies of twenty or thirty, all 

 clustered together on the pa- 

 nicles of grasses and the tops 

 of other plants, like the Eu- 

 ropean Aphides. These are 

 regularly visited by parties of a little black ant, which 

 may be seen going and coining to their heads, and at- 



* Int. to Ent. vol. ii. p. 92. t Zool. Journ. voLjv. p 11& 



