PYGMY WORKERS AND BUILDERS. 107 



than to eat other insects. Yet, with all this innocence of 

 aspect, it is so ruthless a destroyer of animal life that, if a 

 few of them be placed on a bush or plant which is infested 

 with aphides, in a day or two not an aphis will be left. 



5. From the back of the aphides, and toward the tail, 

 there are two slender projections. These are tubes, from 

 which exudes a sweet liquid, which, with the aid of the 

 microscope, can be seen starting, in minute drops, from the 

 end of each tube. When the aphides are in great profusion 

 upon a tree, this liquid falls from them, and covers the 

 leaves with the sweet, sticky substance which is so familiar 

 to us under the name of "honey-dew." Trees thus distin- 

 guished are always overrun by swarms of ants, which lick 

 the sweet droppings from the leaves and hold high revels 

 on this substance, Avhose origin was once so mysterious. 



6. The ants even go farther than this. Not content 

 with taking the honey-dew that has fallen from the aphides, 

 they anticipate its fall, and eagerly lap up the sweet secre- 

 tion as it exudes from the insects. In fact, they make 

 much the same use of the aphides as we do of cows, and 

 even carry off the ant-cows, as they may tic called, to their 

 own nests, and there keep them. That the ants do this 

 has long been known, but the notion of keeping milch- 

 cows seemed so far beyond the capacities of an insect that 

 many persons refused to give credence to so romantic a 

 story. 



7. I have often watched an ant go from one aphis to 

 another, stand behind each, and gently squeeze the body 

 with its fore-legs ; perhaps one aphis in ten, not more, 

 will give out a small drop of honey as clear as crystal, which 

 the ants instantly swallow. The ants take much more care 

 of the aphides than the aphides do of themselves ; they are 

 sad, dull, stupid creatures. It is very pretty to see the 

 licking and washing and cleaning and caressing which the 

 ants constantly bestow on them. When the aphides cast 



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