88 ANTS FED BY APHIDES. 



when the season is not severe, the depth of their nest guards 

 them from the effects of frost. They do not lose their activity 

 unless the temperature be reduced to the second degree of 

 Reaumur below freezing point. I have occasionally seen them 

 walking upon the snow, engaged in their customary avocations. 

 In so reduced a temperature they would be exposed to the 

 horrors of famine, were they not supplied with food by the 

 Pucerons." The Pucerons, we must here observe,' are none 

 other than those little Insects (usually green) found in more 

 or less abundance on every plant and tree, and commonly 

 known under the misleading names of Blight and Honey 

 Dew ; they are also called Aphides and Plant-Lice. The 

 entire history of these little animals is very curious, but of this 

 in due season.* Suffice it now, that one of its most curious 

 chapters relates to their remarkable connexion with Ants, to 

 whom they are in the habit, when called on, .of imparting 

 refreshment in the shape of that sweet juice called Honey Dew, 

 with which their own bodies are amply filled. Our author 

 continues: "By an admirable concurrence of circumstances, 

 which we cannot attribute to accident, these Insects- become 

 torpid at exactly the same degree of cold as those to which 

 they are thus useful, and recover from this state also at the 

 same time, so that the Ants always find them when they need 

 them." We see from this that the absence in Ants of that 

 faculty which would guide them to lay up a winter store, is no 



* See March. 



