THE WINTER BY ANTS. 73 
The statements of Huber, though confirmed by 
Schmarda, have not, indeed, attracted so much notice 
as many of the other interesting facts which they have 
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 focd-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 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 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. 
The nests of our common yellow ant (Lasius flavus) 
contain in abundance four or five species of aphis, 
more than one of which appears to be as yet undescribed. 
In addition, however, to the insects belonging to this 
family, there are a large number of others which live 
habitually in ants’ nests, so that we may truly say that 
our English ants possess a much greater variety of 
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