184 SIR J. LUBBOCK ON ANTS, BEES, AND WASPS. 



the Aphides had laid some eggs exactly resembling those found in 

 the ants' nests ; and on examining daisy-plants from outside, I 

 found on many of them similar Aphides, and more or less of the 

 same eggs. 



I confess these observations surprised me very much. The state- 

 ments of Huber have not, indeed, attracted so much notice as many 

 of the other interesting facts which he has recorded ; because if 

 Aphides are kept by ants in their nests, it seems only natural 

 that their eggs should also occur. The above case, however, is 

 much more remarkable. Here are Aphides, not living in the ants' 

 nests, but outside, on the leaf-stalks of plants. The eggs are laid 

 early in October on the food-plant of the insect. They are of no 

 direct use to the ants, yet they are not left where they are laid, 

 where they would be exposed to the severity of the weather and 

 to innumerable dangers, but brought into their nests by the ants, 

 and tended by them with the utmost care through the long winter 

 months until the following March, when the young ones are brought 

 out and again placed on the young shoots of the daisy. This 

 seems to me a most remarkable case of prudence. Our ants maynot 

 perhaps lay up food for the winter, but they do more, for they keep 

 during six months the eggs which will enable them to procure 

 food during the following summer. 



No doubt the fact that our European ants do not generally 

 store up food in the usual way is greatly due to the nature of 

 their food. They live, as we know, partly on insects and other 

 small animals which cannot be kept fresh ; and they have not 

 learnt the art of building vessels for their honey, probably because 

 their young are not kept in cells like those of the honey-bee, and 

 their pupae do not construct firm cocoons like those of the 

 humble-bee. 



Moreover, it is the less necessary for them to do so, because if 

 they obtain access to any unusual store of honey, that which 

 they swallow is only digested by degrees and as it is required ; 

 so that, as the camel does with water, they carry about with them 

 in such cases a supply of food which may last them a considerable 

 time. They have, moreover, as we know, the power of regurgi- 

 tating this food at any time, and so supplying the larvae or less 

 fortunate friends. Even in our English ants the quantity of 

 food which can be thus stored up is considerable in proportion to 

 the size of the insect ; and if we watch, for instance, the little 

 brown garden-ant (Lasius niger) ascending a tree to milk their 



