^m^ 



HEMIPTERA. 1 29 



ants approach the eggs, pass their tongues in between them, de- 

 positing on them a hquid.- They seemed to treat these eggs exactly 

 as they would have treated those of their own species ; they felt them 

 with their antenna, gathered them together, raised them frequently to 

 their mouths, and did not leave them for an instant. They took 

 them up, and turned them over, and after having examined them with 

 care, they carried them with extreme delicacy into the little box of 

 ^arth placed near them.* 



These were not, however, ants' eggs. They were the eggs of 

 aphides. The young which were soon to be hatched were to give to 

 the provident ants a reward for the attentions they had lavished upon 

 them. How wonderful are the life and the habits of the plant-lice, 

 and their relations to ants ! But we should be led on too far, if we 

 were to pursue these attractive details. 



We pass on now to the history of another family — namely, the 

 Gallinsecta, as Re'aumur calls them, or Cocci. They pass the greatest 

 part of their lives — that is to say, many months — entirely motionless, 

 sticking to the stalks or branches of shrubs ; remaining thus as devoid 

 of movement as the plant to which they are attached. One would 

 say that they were part and parcel of it. Their form is so simjple, 

 that nothing in their exterior would make one guess them to be 

 insects. The larger they become the less they resemble living things. 

 When the coccus is in a state for multiplying its species, when it is 

 engaged in laying its thousands of eggs, it resembles only an ex- 

 crescence of the tree. 



The Gallinsecta are found on the elm, the oak, the lime, the alder, 

 the holly, the orange-tree, and the oleander. Some of the species are 

 remarkable for the beautiful red colouring matter which they furnish. 

 Such are the Coccus cacti, the Chcrmes 'varicgatus, or Oak Tree 

 Cochineal, and the Coccus poloiiiciis. 



The Common Cochineal, Coccus cadi, is found in Mexico, on 

 the Nopal, or prickly pear {Opuntia), particularly on the Opujitia 

 vulgaris, the Opuntia coccifera, and the Opuntia una, plants which 

 belong to the family of the Cactaceae. 



These insects are rather remarkable, in that the male and female 

 are so unlike, that one would take them for animals of difterent 

 genera. 



The male presents an elongated, depressed body, of a dark-brown 

 red. Its head small, furnished with two long feathery antennae, has 

 only a rudimentary beak. The abdomen is terminated by two fine 



* " Recherches," &c., pp. 205, 206. 



