Piccolissima, who once had only frisked and frolicked around her brother, and in whose eyes she had been hitherto a sort of amusing plaything, listened to him now with an air of intelligence and satisfaction, with which he was secretly flattered. "Besides the herculean borer," he continued, "there is another ant in the forests, much larger than your enemy, and who builds mountains. They call him rusa, which means russet. It is he who produces the formic acid, a poison which he sheds with his abdomen into the bite which he makes with his mandibles or jaws, which makes the wound a little red, and makes it itch and burn a little." He was going on to add that mandibula signified jaw bone; abdomen, meant belly. He might, perhaps, while he was in this mood, have declined all these nouns, but his little sister had ceased to listen; she was following with her eye a file of her small black ants, and she saw them go and come very busily upon a small stick which supported her only bean stalk. Doubtless the wind had blown into Piccolissima's garden one of the white cottony tufts which enfold the seeds of the poplar, for it was a young shoot of poplar which served as support to the plant, and as a garden for the ants. Upon the white cottony stem was an assemblage of these little animals, green, brown, yellow, and transparent, all plump, singularly alike, grave, immovable, like a Roman senate. Certain active little creatures with fine shapes walked among them, around them, over them, without appearing to hurt them, or disturbing their gravity. The ants carried their easy manners still farther; they struck lightly, rapidly, alternately, with their two antennae, the backs and the sides of these peaceable animals; they even went so far as to turn them over with their fore paws, and all the while the other insects did not move, and allowed them to do as they pleased. "Look! look!" cried Piccolissima. "Beautiful little wonder," answered her brother, "these are grubs, that's all; and who does not know nowadays, that these are the cows of the ants?" "Their cows!" repeated the little girl; and she remained absorbed in her examination. The ants still continued, in a playful and irregular manner, to strike their little cows, whose trunks Piccolissima saw were thrust into the bark of the aspen. Sometimes an ant gave a little kick, and always one was at hand, with his jaws extended, and his mouth open, ready to receive a drop of sirup, which the eye of Piccolissima at last discovered falling from the extremity of the body of the grub. "I see, I see!" she exclaimed; "it is their way of milking. O the funny little pastoral people!" Whilst she was in this ecstasy, the ant with the ends of his antennae took the transparent little drop into his mouth; and then carefully cleansed with the brushes of his feet the sugared antennae which had served for fork and spoon, or rather for fingers.