come and help her to secure it. In all such cases,
however, so far as my experience goes, the Ants brought their friends,
and some of my experiments indicated that they are unable to send them.

Certain species of Ants, again, make slaves of others, as Huber first
observed. If a colony of the slave-making Ants is changing the nest, a
matter which is left to the discretion of the slaves, the latter carry
their mistresses to their new home. Again, if I uncovered one of my
nests of the Fuscous Ant (Formica fusca), they all began running about
in search of some place of refuge. If now I covered over one small part
of the nest, after a while some Ant discovered it. In such a case,
however, the brave little insect never remained there, she came out in
search of her friends, and the first one she met she took up in her
jaws, threw over her shoulder (their way of carrying friends), and took
into the covered part; then both came out again, found two more friends
and brought them in, the same manoeuvre being repeated until the whole
community was in a place of safety. This I think says much for their
public spirit, but seems to prove that, in F. fusca at least, the powers
of communication are but limited.

One kind of slave-making Ant has become so completely dependent on their
slaves, that even if provided with food they will die of hunger, unless
there is a slave to put it into their mouth. I found, however, that they
would thrive very well if supplied with a slave for an hour or so once a
week to clean and feed them.

But in many cases the community does not consist of Ants only. They have
domestic animals, and indeed it is not going too far to say that they
have domesticated more animals than we have. Of these the most important
are Aphides. Some species keep Aphides on trees and bushes, others
collect root-feeding Aphides into their nests. They serve as cows to the
Ants, which feed on the honey-dew secreted by the Aphides. Not only,
moreover, do the Ants protect the Aphides themselves, but collect their
eggs in autumn, and tend them carefully through the winter, ready for
the next spring. Many other insects are also domesticated by Ants, and
some of them, from living constantly underground, have completely lost
their eyes and become quite blind.

But I must not let myself be carried away by this fascinating subject,
which I have treated more at length in another work.[14] I will only say
that though their intelligence is