110 [October, 



NOTES ON THE MIGEATION OF APHIDES. 

 BY G. B. BUCKTON, F.U.S. 



The friendly criticism on my fourth volume of British Aphides, 

 by M. Lichtenstein, in the last number of the Ent. Mo. Mag. (p. 79), 

 necessitates a few remarks from me in reply, and I may be permitted 

 here to make them. 



The subject of migration of ApJiides is of considerable interest 

 from a scientific, as well as from an economic point of view, and the 

 production of well ascertained facts will at once assert their value, and 

 eventually hold its own against all comers. 



First, I will freely admit, and express regret for, a carelessness of 

 memory, in apparently committing M. Lichtenstein to the position, 

 that some oak-inhabiting Aphides descend to grass-roots in the autumn. 

 I would gladly make the emendation he suggests, and alter the word 

 oak-Ajyhides into e\m-Aphides. 



Again, from the context of my remarks, it may be supposed that 

 I class Achillea and Solidago amongst annual plants. Their root- 

 stocks ai'e as clearly perennial in Britain as they are in France. This 

 point does not, however, affect the main question as to what is the 

 destination of the ova of their infesting Aphides. The destruction or 

 drying up of the stems and leaves of these plants would seem to pre- 

 clude their localization of winter-laid eggs in such parts. Prof. 

 Balbiani has done well in making known the true place of oviposition 

 of Siphonophora millefolii. 



As far back as last November, M. Lichtenstein informed me that 

 he had discovered the "pupiferous form " of Tetraneurn rubra feeding 

 underground on the roots of Triticum caninum, and he said that at 

 the same time other specimens of the species were concealing them- 

 selves within the crevices of the elm-bai'k. He then stated, as he 

 does also now, " that there is no doubt of it being the same insect 

 which wanders from the elm to the grass-roots, and from the grass- 

 roots to the elm." 



It would now appear from Prof. Horvath's corroborative experi- 

 ments at Buda-Pesth, that two European species of Tetraneura have 

 underground habits. 



In his observations, M. Lichtenstein more than once uses terms 

 which would seem to admit that this question is yet suhjudice. He 

 several times describes as "my views," "my theories of migration" 

 from plant to plant. 



In unexpected phenomena it is clearly permissible to hold one's 



