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 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. When we see a community of ants working together in perfect harmony, it is impossible not to ask ourselves how far they are mere exquisite automatons; how far they are conscious beings. When we watch an ant-hill tenanted by thousands of industrious inhabitants, excavating chambers, forming tunnels, making roads, guarding their home, gathering food, feeding the young, tending their domestic animals--each one fulfilling its duties industriously, and without confusion--it is difficult; altogether to deny to them the gift of reason; and all our recent observations tend to confirm the opinion that their mental powers differ from those of men, not so much in kind as in degree. THE KATY-DID'S PARTY By Harriet Beecher Stowe Miss Katy-did sat on the branch of a flowering azalea, in her best suit of fine green and silver, with wings of point-lace from Mother Nature's finest web. Miss Katy was in the very highest possible spirits, because her gallant cousin, Colonel Katy-did, had looked in to make her a morning visit. It was a fine morning, too, which goes for as much among the Katy-dids as among men and women. It was, in fact, a morning that Miss Katy thought must have been made on purpose for her to enjoy herself in. There had been a patter of rain the night before, which had kept the leaves awake talking to each other till nearly morning, but by dawn the small winds had blown brisk little puffs, and whisked the heavens clear and bright with their tiny wings, as you have seen Susan clear away the cobwebs in your mamma's parlor; and so now there were only left a thousand blinking, burning water drops, hanging like convex mirrors at the end of each leaf, and Miss Katy admired herself in each one. "Certainly I am a pretty creature," she said to herself; and when the gallant Colonel said something about being dazzled by her beauty, she only tossed her head and took it as quite a matter of course. "The fact is, my dear Colonel," she said, "I am thinking of giving a party, and you must help me make out the lists." "My dear, you make me the happiest of Katy-dids."