THE ANT'S DAIRY.

o ants keep cows? Let us see. A little insect named an aphis is found on the leaf of most every plant. This little parasite lives on the sweet juice called honey-dew. Now the ants are very fond of this honey-dew, and know that they can obtain a supply from the body of the aphis. The ants, therefore, climb up trees on whose leaves the aphides have collected. Then an ant goes close to one of these insects for a drop of the sweet juice. If this be not soon given out, the ant will gently tap the body of the aphis, and thus obtain a supply of the sweet fluid. After feasting on this, the ant will pass to another little aphis and treat it in the same manner for another drop. But the ant has sense enough to treat the aphis as we treat our cows. Our farmers, you know, keep the cows in enclosed meadows, and supply them with hay and turnips when the grass fails. The ants also take a number of aphides close to their nests, and there keep them secure and supply them with suitable food. Now the lady-birds are also fond of the aphides, and eat them up by hundreds. But the ant has sense enough to keep the aphis for a supply of honey-dew instead of killing it as the lady-bird does. Is not the ant, therefore, entitled to be regarded as a cow-keeper, and are not the tiny little aphides his milch-cows?

T.C.