

HEMIPTERA. 129 
The red ant is singularly adroit in seizing the droplet left it 
by the plant-louse. According to Pierre Huber, it employs its 
| antennze, which swell somewhat towards their extremities, in con- 
veying this droplet to its mouth, and causes it to enter it by 
| pressing it first on one side, then on the other, using its antenne 
as if they were fingers. The greater number of ants seek them 
_ on those plants on which they usually fix themselves—the lowest 
herbs, as well as on the highest trees. There are some, however, 
which never leave their place of abode, and never go out to the 
chase. These are the little ants, of a pale yellow colour, rather 
| transparent, and covered with hairs, and which are extremely 
‘Numerous in our meadows and orchards. These subterranean 
creatures are very noxious to the farmer. Pierre Huber often 
wondered how they subsisted, and with what food they could 
provision themselves, without quitting their gloomy habita- 
tions. Having one day turned up the earth of which a habi- 
tation was composed, in order to discover if any treasure were to 
be found stowed away there, he found nothing but plant-lice. Of 
these the greater number were fixed to the roots of the trees 
which hung down from the roof of their subterranean nest ; 
others were wandering about among the ants. These latter, 
moreover, set about milking their nurses as usual, and with the 
same success. ‘To verify his discovery, he dug up a great number 
of nests of the yellow ant, and invariably found in them aphides. 
So as to study the relations which must exist between these 
insects, he shut up ants with their friends, the plant-lice, in a 
glazed box, placing at the bottom of the box, earth, mixed with 
the roots of some plants, whose branches vegetated outside the 
box. He watered this ant-hill from time to time, and thus both 
the animals and the plants found in his apparatus sufficient 
nourishment. 
“The ants,” he says, “did not endeavour in the least to make 
their escape. They seemed to want for nothing, and to be quite 
content. They tended their larvae and females with the same 
affection they would have shown in their usual ant-hill ; they took 
great care of the plant-lice, and never did them any harm. These, 
m the other hand, did not seem to fear the ants; they allowed 
themselves to be moved about from one place to another, and 
K 


