74 



PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



Our yellow ants are equally careful of their Aphides after 

 they are hatched ; when their nest is disturbed conveying them 

 into the interior ; fighting fiercely for them if the inhabitants 

 of neighbouring formicaries, as is sometimes the case, attempt 

 to make them their prey ; and carrying them about in their 

 mouths to change their pasture, or for some other purpose. 

 When you consider that from them they receive almost the 

 whole nutriment both of themselves and larvse, you will not 

 wonder at their anxiety about them, since the wealth and 

 prosperity of the community is in proportion to the number 

 of their cattle. Several other species keep Aphides in their 

 nests, but none in. such numbers as those of which I am 

 speaking. 1 



Not only the Aphides yield this repast to the ants, but also 

 the Cocci, with whom they have recourse to similar manoeuvres, 

 and with equal success ; only in this case the movement of 

 the antennas over their body may be compared to the thrill of 

 the finger over the keys of a piano-forte ; and in the tropical 

 regions of India and Brazil (where no Aphides occur) it appears, 

 from the observations of General Hardwicke, M. Lund, M. 

 Bescke, and MM. Spix and Martius, that the ants milk the 

 larvee and pupse of various species of Cercopis and MembracisP 

 But what is still more extraordinary, even beetles are occasion- 

 ally made cows of by Formica Jlava, the yellow ant, which, ac- 

 cording to Miiller's very curious account of its habits, confirmed 

 by M. Wesmael, keeps in its nest the singular little Claviger 

 foveolatus (which Mr. Westwood has discovered in this abode in 

 England), and obtains from the bristles terminating its elytra a 

 gummy secretion which it uses for food, as it does that obtained 

 from Aphides, feeding the Clavigers in return for this service, and 

 carefully guarding them from straying, which if they attempt 

 it seizes them with its jaws. 3 Their herds of these hard-coated 

 yellow cattle are often numerous ; for when paying a visit in 

 1829 to my friend Professor Germar at Halle in Prussia, he 



1 See Huber, chap. vi. I have found Aphides in the nest of Myrmica rubra. 

 Boisier de Sauvages speaks of ants keeping their own Aphides, and gives an in- 

 teresting account of them. Journ. de Physique,, i. 195. 



2 Westwood, Mod. Class, of Ins. ii. 239. 434. 



3 Germar, Magazin der Entom. iii. t. 2. Westwood, Mod. Class, of Ins. i. 

 176. 



