102 LETTERS ON ENTOMOLOGY. 
LETTER X. 
What I have next to relate, my dear Harriet, 
will be still more difficult to believe than the 
foregoing. What do you think of ants having 
their milch cattle ? The evidence for it is abun- 
dant and satisfactory. The loves of the ants and 
the aphides (the small insects which swarm on 
the stalks of roses, &c. &c.) have long been 
celebrated, and at the proper season you may 
observe them busy in obtaining their saccharine 
fluid, which we may call milk. 
This fluid, which is scarcely inferior to honey 
in sweetness (and is, in fact, called honey-dew 
when found on leaves), issues in limpid drops 
from the abdomen of the insect by these orifices. 
The ants are always at hand to watch for these 
drops, which they seize and suck down ; but if 
they choose they can make them yield it at their 
pleasure, or rather milk them. They use their 
antennae for fingers, with which they pat the 
aphis briskly till it yields its milk. But the most 
singular part of this history is, that the ants 
