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Updated: May 28, 2025
In order to have their milkers at their disposal, without removing them from pasture, the ants make tunnels along the stalk, and enclose within it all the Aphides they meet. They thus prevent any desire for a distant ramble.
But a foresight still greater and nearer to his is manifested by those ants who breed and keep near them animals of different species, not for the sake of their flesh, but for certain secretions, just as man utilises the milk of the cow or the goat. Ants have true domestic animals belonging to a variety of species, but the most widely spread are the Claviger and the Aphides or plant-lice.
In time they come out and constitute a flock easy to tame. Other ants, still more intelligent, have discovered a method of holding the Aphides captive, while allowing them to enjoy their accustomed life, and to feed at will on the foods they prefer on their own favourite spots.
According to Huber, who had ample opportunities for observation, in Switzerland the slaves habitually work with their masters in making the nest, and they alone open and close the doors in the morning and evening; and, as Huber expressly states, their principal office is to search for aphides.
We can study the characters of our enemies, and learn their vulnerable points. The black and green aphides, or plant-lice, are often very troublesome. They appear in immense numbers on the young and tender shoots of trees, and by sucking their juices check or enfeeble the growth. They are the milch-cows of ants, which are usually found very busy among them.
It would be unpardonable, of course, to write about honey-dew without mentioning tobacco; and I may add parenthetically that aphides are determined anti-tobacconists, nicotine, in fact, being a deadly poison to them. Smoking with tobacco, or sprinkling with tobacco-water, are familiar modes of getting rid of the unwelcome intruders in gardens.
After this interval, I felt sure that the aphides would want to excrete. I watched them for some time through a lens, but not one excreted; I then tickled and stroked them with a hair in the same manner, as well as I could, as the ants do with their antennæ; but not one excreted.
This organ is common to the aphis with all the other bugs and plant-lice. These tubes are not found in quite all species of aphides, but they are very common among the class, and they form by far the most conspicuous and interesting organs in all those aphides which do possess them.
Now, Pickle, my boy, I think it would be very nice to go and sit for half-an-hour in the arbour under the roses, while I kill the green fly the aphides, Mrs Champernowne which increase and multiply at a rate which is absolutely marvellous. Pickle, my boy, I hope you will never grow up as weak and self-indulgent as your uncle. Fill me my long clay pipe."
In many of the pouches I noticed the eggs and young ants, and in some I saw a few dark-coloured Coccidae or aphides; but my attention had not been at that time directed to the latter as supplying the ants with food, and I did not examine a sufficient number of pouches to determine whether they were constant occupants of the nests or not.
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