170 ARTICULATES: INSECTS. 



APHIDES, OR PLANT-LICE. 



These insects have the body short, and at the hind 

 extremity there are two little tubes, from which come 

 minute drops of a very sweet fluid. Aphides inhabit 

 all kinds of plants, the leaves and softer portions being 

 often completely covered with them. 

 The young are hatched in the spring, 

 and soon come to maturity, and, what 

 is remarkable, the whole brood consists 

 Fig. 320. -Aphis. of wingless females; and what is still 



more remarkable, these females bring forth living 

 young, each female producing fifteen or twenty in a 

 day. These young are also wingless females, and at 

 maturity bring forth living young, which are also all 

 wingless females, and in their turn bring forth living 

 young ; and in this way brood after brood is produced, 

 even to the fourteenth generation, in a single season. 

 But the last brood in autumn contains both males and 

 females, which stock the plants with eggs, and then 

 perish. Reaumur, a celebrated naturalist, has proved 

 that a single aphis, in five generations, may have about 

 six thousand millions of descendants ! Wherever plant- 

 lice abound, ants collect to feed upon the honey-like 

 fluid produced by them ; and the most friendly rela- 

 tions exist between these two kinds of insects. An 

 aphis has been known to give in succession a drop 

 of the fluid to each of a number of ants waiting to 

 receive it! 



SCORPION BUGS. 



These bugs live in the water, and can sting severely. 

 They devour other insects, which they seize with their 

 fore legs, which act as pincers. 



