SOCIAL INSECTS 119 
larger /. pratensis, many of the /. exsectas may be seen on the 
backs of the 7. pratensis, sawing off their heads from behind.” 
Such practices would be greatly deprecated in human warfare. 
Some of the most remarkable features in ant-life have refer- 
ence to the use they make of aphides (fig. 1098), and some species, 
instead of merely sallying forth to collect honey-dew, in the way 
described above for the Wood-Ant, have advanced to the pastoral 
stage of social life, and may be described as cattle-keepers. This 
is well illustrated by our native species of Lasius. The common 
little Black Garden-Ant (Zaszus niger), which lives in elaborate 
underground dwellings, is particularly partial to aphides which live 
on twigs and leaves, moving them to convenient places for “ milk- 
ing” operations, and carrying their eggs into its sheltered home 
for the inclement winter season. The 
small Yellow Ant (Laszus flavus), 
another underground species, goes 
further than this, for Lord Avebury 
states that four or five distinct kinds 
of aphis are found in some numbers Fig. 1098—Ant (Myrmica rubra} “ Milking” 
% 7 . : an Aphis (Axis sambuci) 
in its nest, belonging to root-feeding 
species. The same observer made some most interesting obser- 
vations (on captive specimens) of the way in which (like Z. xzger) 
these ants tend another sort of aphis, which is not a root-feeder, 
and he gives the following summary of the facts (in Ants, Bees, 
and Wasps):—‘ 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, exposed 
to the severity of the weather and to innumerable dangers, but 
brought into the nests by the ants, and tended by them with 
the utmost care through the long winter months until the follow- 
ing 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 may not 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, a case of prudence unexampled 
in the animal kingdom.” It should be added that after carrying 
the young aphides to the appropriate food-plant the ants wall 
them in with earth, and the enclosures thus made may be almost 
