90 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
and if stranger-ants attempt to share their treasure with 
them, they endeavour to drive them away, and may 
be seen running about in a great bustle, and exhibit- 
ing every symptom of inquietude and anger. Some- 
times, to rescue them from their rivals, they take their 
aphides in their mouth, they generally keep guard round 
them, and when the branch is conveniently situated, they 
have recourse to an expedient still more effectual to keep 
off interlopers,—they inclose it in a tube of earth or other 
materials, and thus confine them in a kind of paddock 
near their nest, and often communicating with it. 
The greatest cow-keeper of all the ants, is one to be met 
with in most of our pastures, residing in hemispherical 
formicaries, which are sometimes of considerable diame- 
ter. I mean the yellow ant of Gould (/. flava). This 
species, which is not fond of roaming from home, and 
likes to have all its conveniences within reach, usually 
collects in its nest a large herd of a kind of Aphis, that 
derives its nutriment from the roots of grass and other 
plants (Aphis radicum); these it transports from the 
neighbouring roots, probably by subterranean galleries, 
excavated for the purpose, leading from the nest in all 
directions*; and thus, without going out, it has always 
at hand a copious supply of food. These creatures share 
its care and solicitude equally with its own offspring. 
To the eggs it pays particular attention, moistening them 
with its tongue, carrying them in its mouth with the ut- 
most tenderness, and giving them the advantage of the 
sun. ‘This last fact I state from my own observation ; 
for once upon opening one of these ant-hills early in the 
* Huber, 195. I bave more than once found these Aphides in the 
nests of this species of ant, 
