124 OUT OF DOORS. 



' honey-dew.' Both bees and ants are fond of honey~ 

 dew, which the former insect licks from the leaves with 

 its brush-like tongue, the latter taking a more direct 

 course, and lapping it as it exudes from the tubes. 

 While on the leaves the ants are more than usually 

 combative, and if the hand be placed near them, will 

 tuck their tails under them, sit up like dogs begging, 

 and flourish their antennae in a manner which they 

 doubtless think well adapted to frighten the disturbers 

 of their peace. When, however, the angry insect finds 

 that menace is ineffectual, and that it cannot alarm the 

 foe, it settles the matter by dropping to the ground. If 

 an ant~infested tree be suddenly struck with a stick, the 

 ants tumble down in all directions, falling quite uncon- 

 cernedly from a height of fourteen or fifteen feet, and 

 rattling like hail upon the dried leaves at the foot of 

 the tree. When they reach the ground they lie motion- 

 less for a moment, and then pick themselves up and 

 run away as if nothing were the matter. 



Though they instinctively spare the aphides (an 

 instinct which every gardener cannot but wish to be 

 suppressed), they are terrible foes to other insects, 

 seizing them and dragging them into their nests most 

 zealously. I once saw an unfortunate daddy long-legs 

 (Tipula) caught in a gust of wind and blown upon a 

 nest of the wood-ant. No sooner had the ill-fated 

 insect touched the nest than it was surrounded by a 

 host of ants, its legs seized by twenty pairs; of jaws, its 

 wings torn from their joints, and the still struggling 



