were dark purple, almost black, about 

 the size of the French peas that we get 

 in cans. These little creatures had no 

 wings and with their sharp sucking tube 

 extended into the juicy parts of the 

 Senecio, they stayed quietly in one 

 place, though sometimes an ambitious ant 

 would desire to start a herd of his own 

 and would carry away one of these 

 mothers to another part of the plant. 

 Such experiments were always failures 

 unless three or four ants worked to- 

 gether. There were always a few 

 winged aphids m the herd, but to these 

 the ants paid little heed and they wan- 

 dered away or flew on their wings to 

 other parts of the Senecio, or to other 

 plants. 



The ants traveled about among their 

 aphids stroking them with their anten- 

 nae and receiving tiny drops of sweet 

 nectar from the abdomen rings of the 

 nectar tubes. 



One day I saw a tiny black wasp fly 

 into the midst of the herd. It was 

 scarcely a half an inch long but very 

 quick and keen. She was busy with her 

 housekeeping schemes, and had just 

 laised her abdomen to sting one of the 

 aphids when an ant came at her with 

 jaws extended and I w^ell imagine look- 

 ing murder from its thousands of eyes. 

 Quick as lightning the wasp was away, 

 but only to watch for a better oppor- 

 tunity. The two guardians of one side 

 of the herd Avere passing a sweet morsel 

 from one to the other. The little wasp 

 flew down, and from almost under the 

 c'.nts' noses — if they had noses — carried 

 a fine, fat aphid. First the little creature 

 was stung and then firmly grasped by 

 the wasp's jaws and carried away to 

 make a part of the storehouse of food 

 for the maggot like young of the wasp. 

 Many aphids had to be secured by the 

 wasp for each egg that she laid, and she 

 lays several eggs, so you see she has need 

 of all her keenness. At one time I saw 

 her try six times before securing an 

 aphid, so alert were the ant guardians. 



Then there were tiny flies that came 

 into the herd unmolested ; it may be 

 that the ants thought them too small to 

 spend time over, but they worked great 

 destruction in the herd for with a tinv 



sword thc\' made a hole through which 

 one or more eggs were put into the living 

 aphids, but these eggs soon hatched into 

 n>aggot-likc creatures, and the aphid on 

 which they lived blackened and died. 



The herd was not all of the same kind, 

 for among the dark aphids I found two 

 large, white, mealy bugs, tended by the 

 ants for the meal-like secretions on their 

 backs. . Then there were some young 

 plant hoppers, and these, too, the ants 

 seem to guard, though I never saw them 

 stroke the voung hoppers or carry them 

 about in their jaws as they do the aphids. 



The most interesting thief that visited 

 the herd was a tiny gray fly, which 

 looked something like the troublesome 

 creature found in the mountains and 

 called the buffalo gnat. The gray fly 

 liked swxets, too, but the ants were con- 

 tinually on the look out for this burglar, 

 and I have seen it driven away time after 

 time, and at last fly away hoping to find 

 a herd less perfectly guarded. But 

 sometimes it was successful. A sudden 

 rally would bring all the ants to one 

 part of the herd, and then as they loitered 

 along on returning to their posts trying 

 to get a drop of nectar from one of the 

 aphids or crossing antennae with another 

 guard, the little gray fly busied itself 

 at the other edge of the pasture. The 

 fly's antennae were used much as the 

 ant's, but with quicker strokes and prob- 

 ably not such gentle ones for the aphids 

 often squirmed around as though dis- 

 pleased, but always yielded the sweet 

 drop. 



The time of pastures is over in Sep- 

 tember, and the ants have a queer way 

 cf caring for their herd during the 

 winter. When the frost comes and the 

 Senecio begins to die the aphids pull 

 out their sucking beaks, for the sap is 

 mostly gone now, and go down into the 

 ground at the foot of the plants. It is 

 said that at this time the ants carry them 

 into their nests for the winter, but the 

 ants that I observed only carried the 

 eggs into the nest and there kept them . 

 until the spring. In the spring the little 

 aphids crawl or are carried by their 

 guardians to a Senecio, and the hard 

 work of the herdsman begins anew. 

 WiLMATTE Porter Cockerell. 



