‘ HEMIPTERA. 133 
in the base of this branch. This tube was formed of rotten wood, 
of the vegetable earth of this very tree, and I saw many a time 
the ants bringing little bits in their mouths to repair the breaches 
I had made in their pavilion. These are not very common traits, 
and are not of the number of those which can be attributed to an 
habitual routine.” * 
One day, Pierre Huber discovered in a nest of yellow ants a 
cell containing a mass of eggs having the appearance of ebony. 
They were surrounded by a number of ants, which appeared to 
be guarding them, and endeavouring to carry them off. 
Huber took possession of the cell, its inhabitants, and of the 
little treasure it contained, and placed the whole in a box ld, 
covered with a piece of glass, so as to be more easily observed. 
He saw the ants approach the eggs, pass their tongues in between 
them, depositing on them a liquid. They seemed to treat these 
egos exactly as they would have treated those of their own 
species; they felt them with their antenne, gathered them to- 
gether, raised them frequently to their mouths, and did not leave 
them for an instant. They took them up, and turned them over, 
and after having examined them with care, they carried them 
with extreme delicacy into the little box of earth placed near 
them.t+ 
These were not, however, ants’ eggs. They were the eggs of 
aphides. The young which were soon to be hatched were to 
give to the provident ants a reward for the attentions they had 
lavished upon them. How wonderful are the life and the habits 
of the plant-lice, and their relations to ants! But we should be 
led on too far, if we were to pursue these attractive details. 
We pass on now to the histery of another family—namely, 
the Gallinsecta, as Réaumur calls them, or Cocci. They pass 
the greatest part of their lives—that is to say, many months— 
entirely motionless, sticking to the stalks or branches of shrubs ; 
remaining thus as devoid of movement as the plant to which they 
are attached. One would say that they were part and parcel of 
it. Their form is so simple, that nothing in their exterior would 
make one guess them to be insects. The larger they become, the 
* Traité d’Insectologie, &e., pp. 198—201. 
t+ Recherches, &e., pp, 205, 206. 
