234 _ Memoirs of the Indian Museum. - [Vor. VI, 
females from places where they have been secreting themselves. Viviparous repro- 
duction is again started with a fresh impetus and the tender shoots of the plants are 
crowded over by the small green pests. 
In November rusty-red young are born which later turn into some kind of males, 
either apterous, alate or stumpy. The winged ones migrate to other colonies. 
In December the true females make their appearance and soon begin laying. If 
they get a chance of mating fertile eggs are laid, otherwise the sterile eggs are 
passed out which shrivel up later. Each female contains in her body a single big 
egg. 
When active multiplication goes on, the young take u four or five days to 
become adult moulting four times, once a day. 
The ants of the Myrmecine tribe build their nests in dry open places, and it is in 
similar places that the Peganum plant also grows abundantly. A close relation, 
therefore, seems to have sprung up between the Aphid and the ant. The craters 
of ant colonies often open below the infested bushes and their workers are incessantly 
coursing up and down the branches and gorging themselves with ‘‘ honey-dew,’’ 
which is freely exuded by the Aphids. It is not at all an uncommon sight to 
find the ants lifting up fallen plant-lice and depositing them again on the juicy 
twigs. 
For observing them at close quarters some plants were brought into the labora- 
tory in pots. After a few days it was noticed that, through the hole at the bottom of 
the pot, some workers of Monomorium indica (kindly identified by Mr. G. R. Dutt of 
Pusa) had entered the pots and established their galleries in the soil about the smaller 
roots. A large hole opened at the base of the plant, while a heap of small pellets was 
laid to one side as a result of this excavation. A week or so later a part of this colony, 
that dwelt at a little distance from the pots, had shifted itself into the new galleries 
bringing all their larvae and pupae with them. The latter were often aerated in the 
sun below the branches. This ant is so diligent that in October and November it 
‘‘milked’’ the plant-lice at all hours of the day and night. At no time during. 
the night were the plants found to be entirely free from ants. Some of them were 
always present. 
The ants often took the Aphids into their galleries also. This could easily 
be observed when any kind of plant-lice were brought into the laboratory. As soon 
as the ants discover that the plant-twigs are not yielding any sap to the punctures 
made by the Aphids and that therefore no honey was forthcoming, they bodily 
removed the Aphids into their nests, where verv likely they served as food for their 
larvae. 
It is also possible that the eggs of this species are stored by the ants in their 
nests, and taken care of till the fresh shoots arise in early autumn and spring. This 
fact was first observed by Lord Avebury in regard to an English ant (Ants, Bees 
and Wasps), and is recorded by Forbes and others from America, where Aphis 
mardisvadicis is entirely dependent upon Lasius niger for its existence and distribu- 
tion. 
