SOCIAL INSECTS 119 



larger F. pratensis, many of the F. exsectas may be seen on the 

 backs of the F. pratensis, sawing off their heads from behind." 

 Such practices would be greatly deprecated in human warfare. 



Some of the most remarkable features in ant-life have refer- 

 ence to the use they make of aphides (fig. 1098), and some species, 

 instead of merely sallying forth to collect honey-dew, in the way 

 described above for the Wood- Ant, have advanced to the pastoral 

 stage of social life, and may be described as cattle-keepers. This 

 is well illustrated by our native species of Lasius. The common 

 little Black Garden-Ant {Lasius niger), which lives in elaborate 

 underground dwellings, is particularly partial to aphides which live 

 on twigs and leaves, moving them to convenient places for " milk- 

 ing" operations, and carrying their eggs into its sheltered home 

 for the inclement winter season. The 

 small Yellow Ant {Lasius flavus], 

 another underground species, goes 

 further than this, for Lord Avebury 

 states that four or five distinct kinds 

 of aphis are found in some numbers Fi s- *&.-***. (Myrmicambra] "Milking" 



. an Aphis (Aphis sambucf) 



in its nest, belonging to root-feeding 



species. The same observer made some most interesting obser- 

 vations (on captive specimens) of the way in which (like L. niger) 

 these ants tend another sort of aphis, which is not a root-feeder, 

 and he gives the following summary of the facts (in Ants, Bees, 

 and Wasps]-. "Here are aphides, not living in the ants' nests, 

 but outside, on the leaf-stalks of plants. The eggs are laid early 

 in October on the food-plant of the insect. They are of no direct 

 use to the ants, yet they are not left where they are laid, exposed 

 to the severity of the weather and to innumerable dangers, but 

 brought into the nests by the ants, and tended by them with 

 the utmost care through the long winter months until the follow- 

 ing March, when the young ones are brought out and again 

 placed on the young shoots of the daisy. This seems to me a 

 most remarkable case of prudence. Our ants may not perhaps 

 lay up food for the winter; but they do more, for they keep 

 during six months the eggs which will enable them to procure 

 food during the following summer, a case of prudence unexampled 

 in the animal kingdom." It should be added that after carrying 

 the young aphides to the appropriate food -plant the ants wall 

 them in with earth, and the enclosures thus made may be almost 



