APHIDES. 69 
the yellow meadow ant, which lives almost entirely 
below ground, has become much paler. 
The ants may be said almost literally to milk the 
aphides; for, as Darwin and others have shown, the 
aphides generally retain the secretion until the ants 
are ready to receive it. The ants stroke and caress the 
aphides with their antenne, and the aphides then 
emit the sweet secretion. 
As the honey of the aphides is more or less sticky, 
it is probably an advantage to the aphis that it should 
be removed. Nor is this the only service which ants 
render to them. They protect them from the attacks 
of enemies; and not unfrequently even build cowsheds 
of earth over them. The yellow ants collect the root- 
feeding species in their nests, and tend them as carefully 
as their own young. But this is not all. The ants not 
only guard the mature aphides, which are useful; but 
also the eggs of the aphides, which of course, until 
they come to maturity, are quite useless. These eggs 
were first observed by our countryman Gould, whose 
excellent little work on ants! has hardly received the 
attention it deserves. In tkis case, however, he fell 
into error. He states that ‘the queen ant’ [he is 
speaking of Lasius flavus] ‘lays three different sorts of 
eggs, the slave, female, and neutral]. The two first are 
deposited in the spring, the last. in July and part of 
August; or, if the summer be extremely favourable, 
1 An Account of English Ants, by the Rev. W. Gould, 1747 
p. 36. 
