Arrived at the terminus, the ants make a proper apartment for their cow Aphis, and here, in the midst of warm sympathisers, and with every comfort and luxury about her, she no longer hesitates to lay her eggs. In due time they hatch, producing wingless aphides, and from the brood thus raised the ants obtain their honey. When, however, this crawling generation have in turn produced another winged one, the ants, far from seeking to detain these in a place where they would only die, again set to work to make tunnels, through which they conduct them successively to the upper air. One tunnel, one would think, would be sufficient for the purpose; but Lichtenstein, who observed these facts in the south of France,[50] states that each Aphis, as it issues from the egg, has a separate one made for it by the ants. Having reached the surface, these cave-born Ariels spread their wings and fly away. Where they will settle no ant knows, but to the community that has freed them they are lost, probably—they and their eggs—for ever. Do the ants know this? If they do, they do not repine at it, for they know also that the perpetuation of the species, through which alone they can hope for fresh honey, has been provided for. This seems to me altogether to outdo the prudential feat of _Lasius flavus_, and since _Lasius fuliginosus_ is distributed probably throughout the greater part of Europe, all the nations that do honour to that portion of the earth’s surface are at equal liberty to think of it with patriotic complacency as “_our_ ant.” For my part, I will only say this, that, whether it is or not, I think it deserves to be a Japanese ant—or that the Japanese, nowadays, much more deserve to have it than we do: that perhaps is the better way of putting it. ----- Footnote 45: Darwin, Origin of Species, pp. 207, 208. Footnote 46: “Letter to the Smithsonian Institute,” The American Naturalist, September, 1874, p. 565. Footnote 47: Belt, The Naturalist in Nicaragua, 1874, p. 226. Footnote 48: February, 1898, vol. 14. Footnote 49: Lubbock, Ants, Bees, and Wasps, p. 72. Footnote 50: Kirby, Text-book of Entomology, p. 113. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIII Cow caterpillars—The adventures of Theophrastus—Cave-born Ariels—Led to the sky—A strange attraction—Ant slaves and slave-holders—Slave-making raids—Feeble masters—An ant mystery—Effects of slavery—The decadent’s reply.