424 



THE ANIMALS AND MAN 



mite-loving) insects have been recorded by collectors as 

 living habitually in the nests of ants and termites. Many 

 of them (they are mostly small beetles and flies) have lost 

 their wings and have had their bodies otherwise considerably 

 modified, often in such wise that they come greatly to 

 resemble in external appearance 

 the ants with which they live. 

 The relations between ants 

 and aphids (plant lice) are 

 often referred to in popular nat- 

 ural histories and books about 



insects as examples of symbiosis ^'°- 21+- Termitogaster texana, 



of unusual interest. Unfortu- l^^^ tKf "fthl 



nately, however, not enough termite, Eutermes Cinereus, in 



careful study has been given Texas. (Natural size i 1-2 



. r i.1. ii mm; after Bowes.) 



to many of these apparently ' 



true examples of symbiosis to enable us to 



be certain of the truth of the alleged care 



and guarding of the ant-cows, as Linnfeus 



called these aphids, by their milkers, the 



ants. That ants do swarm about the aphids 



to lap up the "honey dew" excreted by 



them, is wholly true, and the very presence 



of the sharp-jawed and pugnacious ants 



must keep away many enemies of the de- 



which lives in fenseless plant lice, toothsome morsels for 



the nest of the the lady-bird beedes, flower-fly larvae and 



ca, in Denmark. °^^^'' predatory msects. 



(Thirteen times In the case of the interesting relations 



natural size; between the corn root aphid. Aphis maidis- 



emert.) y^^— ^ ^f ^j^g Mississippi Valley States, 



and the little brown ant, Lasius brunneus, however, 



we have the careful observations of Professor Forbes to rely 



on. In the Mississippi Valley, this aphid deposits in autumn 



its eggs in the ground in corn fields, often in the galleries 



Fig. 215 

 matis blattoides, 

 a Phorid fly 



