456 INSECTS. 



comes torpid at precisely the same temperature as the ant ; a 

 coincidence which it is hardly possible to attribute to mere chance. 

 The winter haunts of the aphis, which are chiefly the roots of trees 

 and shrubs, are well known to their pursuers; and when the cold 

 is not excessive, they regularly go out to seek their accustomed 

 supply from these insects. Some species of ants have even such suffi- 

 cient foresight to obviate the necessity of these journeys ; they 

 bring these animals to their own nests, where they lodge them near 

 the vegetables on which they feed, while the domestic ants prevent 

 them from stirring out, guarding them with great care, and de- 

 fending them with as much zeal as they do their own young. 



But their sagacity goes even much further than what is here re- 

 lated. They collect the eggs of the aphis, they superintend their 

 hatching, continually moistening them with their tongue, and pre- 

 serving them till the proper season for their exclusion, and in a 

 word, bestow on them all the attention which they give to the eggs 

 of their own species. When disturbed by an intruder, they carry 

 oft' these eggs in great haste to a place of safety. Different species 

 of aphis are to be found in the same nest : several kinds of gall 

 insects, and also of kermes serve the same purposes to the ants as 

 the aphis, affording them in like manner juices possessed of nutri- 

 tious qualities. All these live in perfect harmony with their mas- 

 ters, who so far from offering them any molestation, defend them 

 with courage against the ants of other societies who might attempt 

 to purloin them. That the ants have some notion of property in 

 these insects, would appear from their occasionally having establish- 

 ments for these aphises at a distance from their city in fortified 

 buildings which they construct for this purpose alone, in places 

 where they are secure from invasion. Here the aphises are con- 

 fined as cows in a dairy, to supply the wants of the metropolis. 



Our author has been at great pains to ascertain by what means 

 these insects are enabled to co-operate in the execution of these 

 and other designs ; a co-operation which is inexplicable, except on 

 the supposition that they possess a species of language, by which 

 the intentions of individuals are imparted to one another, and to 

 the community at large. The particular means apparently used 

 for this purpose are detailed in many parts of the work ; and it 

 might, we conceive, have been instructive to have brought toge- 

 ther, in a distinct chapter, all the facts that bore upon this inter- 



