GLEANINGS. MiLen COWS KEPT BY ANTS. — The ants keep and feed
certain other insect., from which they extract a sweet nutritious liquid, in the same manner as we ob- tain milk from cows. There are two species of insects from which the ant-tribe abstract this juice—the aphides, or plant-lice, and the gall insects. Linn:ens, and after him other naturalists, have called these insects the mulch cattle of the ants ; and the term is not inapplicable. In the proper season, any person who may choose to be at the pains of watching their proceedings, may see, as Linnmus says, the ants ascending trees that they may milk their cows, the aphides. The substance which is here called milk is a saccharine fluid, which these insects se- crete; it is scarcely inferior to honey in sweetness, and issues in limpid drops from the body of the insect,- by two little tubes, placed one on each side just above the abdomen. The aphides insert their sou-kers into the tender bark of a tree, and employ themselves without intermission in absorbing its sap ; which, having passed through the digestive system of the insect, is discharged by the organs just described. When no ants happen to be at hand to receive this treasure, the insects eject it to a distance by a jerking motion, which at regular intervals they give their bodies. When the ants, however, are in attendance, they carefully watch the emission of this precious fluid, and immediately suck it down. The ants not only consume this fluid when voluntarily ejected by tjus aphides, but, what is still more surprising, they know how to make them yield it at pleasure ; or, in other terms, to milk them. un this occasion the antennte of the ants dis- charge the same functions as the fingers of a iniik-maid : with these organs, moved very rapidly, they pat the abdomen of an aphis first on one side and their on the other ; a little drop of the much coveted juice immediately issues forth, which the ant eagerly conveys to its mouth. The milk of one aphis having been thus ex- hausted, the ant proceeds to treat others in the same manner, until at length it is satiated, when it returns to its nest. * * * * Soule species of ants go iii search of these aphides on the vegetables where they feed : but there are others, as the yellow ant, which collect a large herd of it kind of eines, which deri% es its nutri- ment from the roots of grass and other plants. These 'Mich kine they remove from their native plants and domesticate in their habitations, affordiug, as I tuber justly observes, an example of almost human industry and sagacity. Ou turning up the nest of the yellow ant, this naturalist one day saw a variety of phides either wandering about in the different chambers, or attached to the roots of plants which penetrated into the interior. The ants appeared to be extremely jealous of their stock of cattle; they followed them about, and caressed them, whenever they wished for the honied juice, %Odell the aphis never refused to yield. On the slightest appearance of daneer, they took them up in their mouths, and gently removed them to a more sheltered and inure secure spot. They dis- pute with other ants for them, and III Short watch them as keenly as any pas- toral people would guard the herds which form their wealth. Other species which do not gather the aphides together iuu their own nest, still scent to look on them as private property ; they set sentinels to protect their places of re- sort and drive away other ants; and, what is still inure extraordin.try, they inclose them as a farmer does his slieu-:p, to preserve them not only front rival alas, but also from the natural enemies of the aphis.--histury of Insects.
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