340 MR. bold's notes, etc. 



mention. "Wasps were abundant, and the same may be said of 

 some of the Saw-flies; whilst the common species of Apathi 

 (which are parasitical on Humble-bees) were swarming on every 

 flower during the autumn. 



The commoner species of Lepidoptera were both exceedingly 

 few in number, and remarkably late in appearing. Proprietors 

 of gardens could not but note the almost total absence of the 

 common white butterflies, the larva of which makes such havoc 

 amongst cabbages and turnips. Large moths were scarce, but I 

 never before saw such numbers of minute ones, which were 

 literally swarming towards the end of summer. Perhaps this 

 may be accounted for by their mostly passing the winter as eggs 

 on the stems of plants ; and being covered by a water-proof com- 

 position, they are not so liable to casualties as the larger species, 

 which being buried in the earth as larva, or pupa, must suffer 

 greatly from a superabundance of wet. 



But the great peculiarity of the season was the sudden appear- 

 ance of myriads of Aphides, which coming at the time of the 

 late epidemic, caused a great deal of unnecessary alarm in the 

 minds of many people, who, not acquainted with the economy of 

 these insects, looked upon them as the forerunner, if not the 

 primary cause of the malady, and thence called them " cholera- 

 flies." I need scarcely mention that Aphides (at least the major 

 portion of them) are produced from eggs in spring, and are 

 then all wingless females, which are viviparous, and produce 

 other wingless creatures in their turn. This is repeated through 

 several generations (varying from eight to twelve, and under 

 peculiar circumstances to a much greater number*), until, on the 

 approach of autumn, winged males and females are produced,t 



* See Westwood on the " Modern Classification of Insects," vol. ii, 440. who 

 remarks that Keyer observed a colony " of Aphis Dianthi which, on being 

 brought into a constantly heated room, continued to propagate for four years 

 with a single impregnation of a female by a male, tbe young being constantly 

 produced of the female sex." 



t In a paper published in the Berwick Advertiser, my friend Mr. James 

 Hardy, speaking of Aphis Rumicis, remarks thst " the principal winter-quar- 

 ters of the insect is the whin or furze, on which it either deposits its eggs in 

 autumn, or, if the weather is mild, continues to propagate a living progeny 

 till the spring. During the summer the insects are viviparous, and there is a 

 winced and wingless race produced alternately ; the former migratory and 

 destined to extend the geographical limits of the species ; the latter, for the 

 most part, stationary upon the plant whence first it drew the vital nutriment," 



