That’s about all the conversation I have ever had with my Ant. But she took me to the pasture, and I saw her cow.
I am almost afraid to tell you where the pasture was, and what the cow was; but if you don’t believe me, you can look in books written about such things, and they will prove to you that every word I say is true.
The pasture was the stalk of a green brier; and there stood, not only my Ant’s cow, but as many as five hundred others, all feeding away upon it. You have seen millions of them in your lives, for you must know that they are nothing but little green plant-lice, like those that we find on our rosebushes, and that we try in every possible way to get rid of.
Who would ever suppose there could be anything for which these little green plant-lice could serve as cows! I assure you it is true, and if you live in the country you can see it for yourself; but you will have to look through a magnifying glass to see them milked.
Think of looking through a magnifying glass at anybody’s cow! I looked at my Ant’s for an hour, and it seemed to me I hardly winked, I was so much interested in the curious sight.
Its skin was smooth as satin and of a most beautiful light green color. It had six legs, and little hooks at the end, instead of hoofs. The oddest thing of all was that the horns were not on its head, but at the other end of its body, where the tail would have been if it had had a tail like any other cow.
The horns were hollow tubes, and it is out of them that the milk comes, a drop at a time. The milk is meant for the little plant-lice to drink before they are old enough to hook their six legs on to stalks and leaves, and feed on sap.
But I think that in any place where there are many of my Ant’s race, the little plant-lice must fare badly, for the Ants are so fond of this milk that sometimes they carry off whole herds of the plant-lice and shut them up in chambers in their houses. There they feed them as we do cows in barns, and go and milk them whenever they please.