no THE INDUSTRIES OF ANIMALS. 



almost entirely on the sweet secretion of large 

 Aphides in the bark of oaks and walnut trees. The 

 ants construct around these insects cabins made of 

 fragments of wood, and wall them in completely so 

 as to keep them at their own disposal. 



The Myrmica also forms similar pasture lands; its 

 system is rather less perfect than that of the Lasius, 

 as it does not form covered galleries to reach its 

 stables. It is content to build large earth huts around 

 a colony. A large hole, which allows the passage of 

 the ants, but not the escape of the flock, is formed so 

 that they may come to milk their cows. They use 

 the same methods we have seen practised on the 

 Claviger, caressing the insect with their antennse 

 until the sugared drop appears.^ 



An example is quoted which shows still greater 

 intelligence and foresight in Ants. They have been 

 known to repopulate their territories after an epidemic, 

 or at least after the destruction of their Aphides. 

 The proprietor of a tree, finding it covered with these 

 exploited beasts, cleared it of its inconvenient guests by 

 repeated washes; but the dispossessed Hymenoptera, 

 considering that this pasture close to their nest was 

 very convenient for a flock, resolved to repopulate it, 

 and for some time these tenacious insects could be 

 seen bringing back among the foliage Aphides 

 captured elsewhere.^ 



1 In Central America, Belt has described how the Leaf-hoppers are 

 milked for their honey by various species of Ants, and also by a Wasp. 

 He considered that some species of Leaf-hopper would be exterminated 

 if it were not for the protection they received from Ants. — Naturalist 

 in Nicaragua, 1888, pp. 227-230. 



^ P. Huber, Recherches, etc., pp. 210-250; Lubbock, "On the 

 Habits of Ants," Wiltshire Arch, and Nat. Hist. Mag., 1879, pp. 

 49-62. 



