ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 117 



the same manner, as well as I could, as the ants do with 

 their antennae ; but not one excreted. Afterwards I allowed 

 an ant to visit them, and it immediately seemed, by its eager 

 way of running about, to be well aware what a rich flock it 

 had discovered ; it then began to play with its antennae, on 

 the abdomen first of one aphis and then of another ; and 

 each aphis, as soon as -it felt the antennae, immediately 

 lifted up its abdomen and excreted a limpid drop of 

 sweet juice, which was eagerly devoured by the ant." The 

 behavior of ants towards Aphides has been known for a 

 considerable time. Linnaeus has called the Aphis the cow 

 of the ants (Aphis Formicarum vacca) although he did not 

 know that the ants took them within their dwellings, and 

 there kept them as regular milch-cows. Huber alludes 

 to this when he says : " An ant colony is the richer the 

 more Aphides it keeps. They are its cattle, its cows, its 

 goats. Who could have thought that the ants were a 

 shepherd-nation ! " The Lasius brunneus, or brown ant, 

 which seldom leaves its nest, lives almost wholly, according 

 to Forel, on the large bark lice, which it keeps and feeds in 

 its rooms and passages generally hollowed out in the bark 

 of trees. It manifests the greatest care for these animals, 

 carries them away when the nest is uncovered, or, if they 

 are too large to carry, leads them into the uninjured gal- 

 leries. These lice have a very long proboscis, which they 

 thrust deeply into the bark of the trees on the sap of 

 which they live. They can only withdraw it with difficulty, 

 and nothing is funnier to see than the indifference with 

 which the ants compel the poor things to loose their hold by 

 pulling and tearing at them, if the nest be opened or 

 endangered. Although the drawing out of the proboscis 

 can be managed if done slowly, yet there is danger of 

 breaking it. Lasius flavus, the yellow ant, also lives 

 entirely on the juice of the leaf, or rather root lice, 

 which it keeps in the tree roots surrounding its nest. 

 If its nest is uncovered, it carries away its beloved milch- 

 cows with just the same care as it does its own larvae 

 as Forel has often had an opportunity of observing. 

 Many species, as already mentioned, build roofs and 

 galleries of earth for them on plants and trees, so as to 

 protect them from outside injury. Others collect the eggs 

 of the Aphides in autumn, and thus bring them up and keep 



