H YMEN OP TER A. 
637 
There are many forms of ants’ nests, but each species 
builds the same sort. Sometimes the nest is a simple tun¬ 
nel in the earth, sometimes a large mound with tunnels and 
galleries extending many feet under ground; and some 
species live in decayed trees. In the tropics a greater variety 
of these structures occur than in our country. Some 
colonies own several mounds. One colony of one species 
has been known to have two hundred mounds, covering 
several hundred square yards. Ants are also very good 
road-makers, sometimes making clean, beaten paths, and 
sometimes working out covered ways under rubbish. 
As to their food, ants are general feeders, eating animal 
food and also sweet substances, like the juice of fruit and 
sugar; and they are also very fond of the honey-dew given 
off by Aphids; and the ants regard these Aphids as their 
milch-cows. An ant will walk up to an Aphid and stroke its 
back with its antennae, and immediately the pleased Aphid 
gives forth a drop of sweet fluid, which the ant at once 
drinks up. The ants take very good care of their cattle, 
and will carry them to new pastures if the old ones dry up. 
They also carry the Aphid-eggs into their nests, and keep 
them sheltered during the winter, and then carry the young 
plant-lice out and put them on plants in the spring. When 
ants are seen going up and down the trunks of trees it 
is safe to suppose they are attending Aphids. They also 
care similarly for some of the Coccids (especially some 
Lecaniums) and a few other honey-giving insects (Tree- 
hoppers and others). 
Many species of beetles are also found in ants* nests, but 
the ants have never revealed to us why these insects are 
allowed to dwell in peace in their habitations. 
We have many evidences that ants think, but what goes 
on in their minds we can only guess. They have a language 
that seems to exist through the sense of touch. The an¬ 
tennae are most sensitive organs, and when ants meet they 
cross their antennae and pat each other. If one finds some 
