Aphides are often spoken of by entomologists as if a very high degree of interest attached to them, and, no doubt, in many respects this is the case. As we have seen, they exhibit certain phenomena of _corporealism_ (which _did_ interest Professor Huxley) to a greater extent perhaps than any other creature, though of this I am not at all sure; but after all one soon gets over the wonder of that, especially since there is no realising it, and then it does not seem to raise a creature to a very high level of interest. Again, to quote authority, “there is a most curious alternation of broods in these insects, some forms being winged and with separate sexes, and others wingless or apterous and capable of producing their kind for an indefinite number of generations before a sexual brood is again developed. In fact, the anomalies of members of this family are endless, and it would require volumes to epitomise even the comparatively little which has already been discovered with reference to their habits and transformations.”[44] Still, for all this, it is difficult to look long at an Aphis, or a collection of Aphides upon a rose tree or any other of the plants they affect, without getting heartily tired of them, and for me, as perhaps for most people, the principal interest about these sluggish creatures lies in the relations which have become established, without any intelligent efforts on their own part, between them and ants—but it will be best to reserve the discussion of this subject for the following chapter. ----- Footnote 43: Buckton, Monograph of the British Aphides, vol. i Footnote 44: The Concise Knowledge Library, Natural History, pp. 601, 602. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XII Ants and their honey-cows—A mutual benefit—Unity of motive—The end and the means—Two ways of getting honey—Insect cattle—Wasps as cow-milkers—A cow-keeping bee—Ant cow-sheds—Aphides in ants’ nests—Children of light and darkness—Forethought extraordinary.