THE ANTS 67 



stroking the backs of the aphids the ants make 

 them give up this sweet fluid, taking it home in 

 their mouths to feed to their queens and to those 

 young nurses that do not go outside the hill. 



Some kinds of ants will take the aphids home in 

 their mandibles and keep them in their cities in a 

 sort of stable where they feed and milk them. 

 Some ants will carry them away from the plants 

 where they happen to be, putting them on other 

 plants that they seem to know will make the aphids 

 fatter and so make them give more honey-dew, 

 just as we think our cows give better milk if they 

 feed in a pasture of fresh green grass. 



It is supposed that ants keep pets in their cities, 

 for there is a kind of beetle which is found in the 

 hills of many ants which they treat with great care 

 and seeming fondness, stroking it with their an- 

 tennae and feeding it. Isn't it funny? Just as we 

 feed and stroke our cats! 



Some ants keep slaves. They go out in regular 

 masses like an army and march in order, never 

 scattering or hesitating, on their way to the nest of 

 a certain kind of black ant called the slave ant. 

 Here they engage in battle, and when they have 

 conquered they rush into the city and come out 

 carrying the babies in the little cases. These they 

 take back to their own city, and when the little 

 black-ant babies come out of their cradles they 

 become slaves to the ants that stole them. 



In the nests of these slave-making ants there are 

 no nurses or workers of their own kind. The slaves 

 take their places and do that work. The slaves 



