122 



INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE APPLE. 



first laid are of a liglit yellow or green color, but gradually 

 become darker, and finally black. 



As soon as the buds begin to expand in the spring, tliese 

 eggs hatch into tiny lice, which locate themselves upon the 

 swelling buds and the small, tender leaves, and, inserting their 

 beaks, feed on the juices. All the lice thus hatched at this 

 period of the year are females, and reach maturity in ten or 

 twelve days, when they commence to give birth to living 

 young, producing about two daily for two or three weeks, 

 after which the older ones die. The young locate about the 

 parents as closely as they can stow themselves, and they 

 also mature and become mothers in ten or twelve days, and 

 are as prolific as their predecessors. They tlius increase so 

 rapidly that as fast as new leaves expand colonies are ready 

 to occupy them. As the season advances, some of the lice 

 acquire wings, and, dispersing, found new colonies on other 

 trees. When cold weather approaches, males as well as 

 females are produced, and the season closes with the deposit 

 of a stock of eggs for the continuance of the species another 

 year. 



When newly born, the apple aphis is almost white, but 

 soon becomes of a pale, dull greenish-yellow. The females 

 are said to be always wingless ; their bodies are oval in form, 

 less than one-tenth of an inch long, of a pale yellowish- 

 green color, often striped 

 with deeper green. The 

 eyes are black, honey- 

 tubes green, and there is 

 a short, tail-like appen- 

 dage of a black color. 

 The accompanying il- 

 lustration (Fig. 122) of 

 a winged male and wing- 

 less female, highly mag- 

 nified, shows the struc- 

 ture and shape of the insect ; its beak, which proceeds from 



Fig. 122. 



