280 ANTS AND TERMITES 



sanguinea, are remarkable or infamous for their slave-making 

 expeditions. Unable or unwilling to work themselves, they make 

 war upon others for the sole purpose of procuring bondsmen, who 

 literally and truly labour for them, and perform all the daily 

 domestic duties of the community. Mr. Lund (" Annales des 

 Sciences Naturelles," tome xxiii. p. 113) has found among the 

 Brazilian ants similar mixed societies, and mentions the Myrmica 

 paleata as a species whose nest contains labourers of the nearly 

 related Myimica erythrothorax. These are evidently workers by 

 compulsion, though it must be confessed that they are far better 

 treated than most " niggers " by the model republicans of 

 Carolina or Louisiana. 



The Aphides, or plant lice, eject a sweet, honey-like fluid, 

 which may be correctly termed their milk, and which is so 

 grateful to the ants, that they attend on the honey-flies for 

 the sole purpose of gathering it, and literally milk them as we 

 do our cows, forcing them to yield the fluid, by alternately 

 patting them with their antennae. But the most extraordinary 

 part of these proceedings is, that the ants not only consider 

 the Aphides as their property, but actually appropriate to 

 themselves a certain number, which they enclose in a tube 

 of earth or other materials near their nest, so that they may 

 be always at hand to supply the nourishment which they 

 may desire. The yellow ant, the most remarkable '^cow- 

 keeper" among our indigenous species, pays great attention to 

 its herds, plentifully supplying them with proper food, and 

 tending their young with the same tender- 

 ness which it exhibits towards its own. 

 With the same provident care a large black 

 ant of India constructs its nest at the root 

 of the plant upon which its favourite species 

 of aphis resides. 



The ants of tropical America, where no 

 Aphides are found, derive their honey from 

 another family of insects, the numerous and 

 grotesquely-formed Membracidse, which are 

 most abundant in the re^fions of Brazil. 



Membracidae. ° 



According to Mr. Swainson, who first stated 

 the fact, many of these little Membracidse live in families of 

 twenty or thirty, all clustered together on the panicles of grasses. 



