390 THE INSECT WORLD. ° 
out their bodies as far as possible (keeping on the bank the 
while), to lend a helping hand to their drowning friends. | 
Nevertheless, the salvage did not progress much, when the ants, 
which were getting very uneasy, conceived a happy thought. <A 
few were seen to run to the ant-hill and then to reappear. 
They brought with them a squad of eight grenadiers, who threw 
themselves into the water without any hesitation, and who, 
swimming vigorously, seized with their pincers all the drowning 
ants, and brought them all on to terra firma. Eleven, half-dead, 
were thus brought to shore, that is, to the rim of the basin. 
They would probably all of them have succumbed, if their com- 
panions had not hastened to lend them assistance. They rolled 
them in the dust, they brushed them, they rubbed them, they 
stretched themselves on their dying companions to warm them ; 
then they rolled them and rubbed them again. Jour were 
restored to life. A fifth half-recovered, and still moving its legs 
and its antenne a little, was taken home with all sorts of pre- 
cautions. The six others were dead. They were carried into 
the ant-hill by their afflicted companions. One thinks one must 
be dreaming when one reads such things as this, and yet Dupont 
de Nemours tells us, ‘“‘ I have seen it!”’ 
Ants are also very fond of a peculiar liquid which the plant-lice 
secrete from a pouch in the abdomen. When they have got pos- 
session of a plant-louse, they excite it to secrete this liquid, but 
without doing it any harm. They carry the plant-lice into the 
ant-hill, or into private stables. There they keep them, give 
them their food, and suck them. We have already mentioned these 
curious relations which are established between ants and plant- 
lice.* Fig. 367 shows an ant thus occupied. The Gallinsecta also 
furnish the ants with sugary liquids. 
During the cold of winter the ants sleep at the bottom of 
their nests, without taking any food. A small number of species 
only held out through the severe season, by shutting themselves 
up in the ant-hill with a number of plant-lice. It is thus that 
they pass the winter with a supply of food. We must mention, 
however, that in warm countries the ants do not hybernate. 
We have just described ant society during the quiet periods 
* See the Order Hemiptera, swpra.—Ep. 
