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Way back in the history of time, things were perhaps different from what they are now. Aphis was then a racy tidbit, and shared, no doubt, the murderous assaults of Formica, as it did of other carnivores.

For ages this may have been going on, but how long conjecture only can tell. But there came a time when affairs were changed. A new order of things was initiated. Earth was growing better and impressing new features upon its life. An Ant, more wise than any of its fellows, or any that had ever lived before, doubtless stepped upon the scene, and a new era for Aphis inaugurated.

Finding by accident, or otherwise, the delightful qualities of aphis-excretion, it would not be slow to communicate the information to its companions. And as news travels rapidly, and ants are by no means reticent creatures, but a short time would be necessary to carry it everywhere, till all the families, near and remote, of the great world of the Formicidæ would be made acquainted with the important discovery.