164 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



practicable. I am inclined to believe that nothing will prove so 

 effectual as thorough irrigation, or copious and frequent showers 

 of rain, which will bring forward the plants with such rapidity, 

 that they will soon become so strong and vigorous as to withstand 

 the attacks of these little bugs. The great increase of these and 

 other noxious insects may fairly be attributed to the exterminating 

 war which has wantonly been waged upon our insect-eating birds, 

 and we may expect the evil to increase unless these little friends 

 of the farmer are protected, or left undisturbed to multiply, 

 and follow their natural habits. Meanwhile, some advantage 

 may be derived from encouraging the breed of our domestic 

 fowls. A flock of young chickens or turkeys, if suffered to go 

 at large in a garden, while the mother is confined within their 

 sight and hearing, under a suitable crate or cage, will devour great 

 numbers of destructive insects ; and our farmers should be urged 

 to pay more attention than heretofore to the rearing of chickens, 

 young turkeys, and ducks, with a view to the benefits to be de- 

 rived from their destruction of insects. 



II. HARVEST-FLIES, &c. (Hemiptera Homoptera.) 



By many entomologists this division is raised to the rank of a 

 separate order, under the name of Homoptera ; but the insects 

 arranged in it are, as already stated, much more like the true 

 Hemiptera, or bugs, than they are to the insects in any other 

 order, which shows the propriety of keeping these two divisions 

 together, and that separately they hold only a subordinate impor- 

 tance compared with other orders. 



The insects belonging to this division are divided by naturalists 

 into three large groups, or tribes. 



1. Harvest-flies, or Cicadians (Cicadad.e) ; having short an- 

 tennae, which are awl-shaped or tipped with a little bristle ; wings 

 and wing-covers, in both sexes, inclined at the sides of the body ; 

 three joints to their feet ; firm and hard skins ; and in which the 

 females have a piercer, lodged in a furrow beneath the extremity 

 of the body. 



2. Plant-lice (Aphidid^e); having antenna? longer than the head, 

 and threadlike or tapering from the root to the end ; wing-covers 



