4 i& Cane Fly of Grenada. 



female of this insect, in common with all of the Cicadidse, 

 is furnished at the extremity of the body, beneath, with ah 

 admirably formed pair of saw-like organs, which are ex- 

 pressly for the purpose of cutting grooves in various vegetable 

 productions, in which the eggs are then deposited. A full 

 account of this apparatus is given by Reaumur : but, the 

 A'phides not being furnished with it, their progeny is de- 

 posited upon the surface of plants. Where, therefore, the 

 Grenada insect abounds, it is not improbable that much mis- 

 chief may be occasioned by the interruption of the juices of 

 the plants; but I can scarcely think that this (which is the 

 chief complaint of your correspondent) can be the primary 

 cause of the mischief. He, indeed, adds, although doubt- 

 ingly, that the insects regale themselves upon the sweets of 

 the sugar cane, and, from their numbers, literally bleed the 

 plant to death. Now, the under side of the head of the 

 insect in all the different stages of its life, is furnished with a 

 jointed sucker having several fine internal darts (" the snout 

 and beak ending in a bristle," of your correspondent), which 

 it thrusts into the leaves or stems of plants, for the purpose 

 of pumping up its fluids, which are its only nourishment; 

 but in no instance of which I am aware is this kind of 

 rostrum employed in forming a receptable for the eggs.* 



Many of your readers have, doubtless, often observed in the 

 spring a quantity of frothy matter upon various plants. This 

 is caused by an insect nearly allied to the Grenada pest, and 

 is commonly known by the name of the cuckoo-spit insect 

 (Aphrophora spumaria). In this instance the frothy matter 

 is nothing else but the sap of the plant which the insect has 

 pumped up into its stomach by its snout, and afterwards 

 ejected; and we can easily conceive, if any plant were to be 

 attacked by myriads of this insect, how great would be the 

 damage which it would sustain ; the operations of this insect, 

 from the similarity in the structure of the mouth, being very 

 similar to those of the plant lice : and your readers are ail 

 aware how exceedingly detrimental some species of the latter 

 genus (A s phis) are in England; one of them, A v phis humuli, 

 often occasioning damage as serious to the grower of the hop 

 as the Grenada insect does to the planter of the sugar cane.f 



* In the weevils (C'urculionidae), however, this appeal's to be the case, 

 it being recorded that the nut weevil (Balaninus nucum) pierces with its 

 long snout the shell of the nut in which it deposits its eggs. (See, also, 

 llustieus of Godalming, in the Entomological Magazine, p. &"5.) 



-f- See a most able essay on the habits, and injurious effects on vege- 

 tation, of the A'phides generally, and of the A v phis humuli (or hop fly, or 

 hop louse) in particular, and in full detail, by Rusticus of Godalming, in 

 the Entomological Magazine, vol. i. p. 217 to 224. — .7. 1J. V° *««*>;• 



