THE ENTOMOLOGIST 



Vol. XLL] SEPTEMBEE, 1908. [No. 544 



JOTTINGS ON APHIDES TAKEN DURING 1907 and 1908. 



By Claude Mokley, P.E.S., &c. 



Some notes upon the results of a few months collecting 

 Aphididee may not be entirely without interest, since the family 

 is so generally shunned by the " pure entomologist " that one 

 never sees anything respecting it in current literature. Last year 

 I was anxious to add to the six thousand species which constitute 

 the known insect fauna of Suffolk, and began to name such 

 Aphides as I saw with the aid of the four volumes of Buckton's 

 * Monograph of the British Aphides,' published by the Ray 

 Society, 1876-1883. This I have followed with slavish exactness, 

 and have succeeded, by examining the insects while hardly dead, 

 in naming every specimen whose food-plant was known to me with 

 conscientious certainty, which reflects high credit upon the Mono- 

 graph, though one could sometimes wish the figures were less 

 artistic and more scientifically drawn, and the descriptions fuller. 

 It is, however, often impossible to determine single-winged speci- 

 mens found on, very probably accidental, plants. I had no 

 previous knowledge of the subject, which I approached from the 

 point of view of the species' pabulum ; I drew up a list of every 

 food-plant indicated by Buckton — one hundred and ninety-eight 

 indigenous kinds — and found it an invaluable guide in the absence 

 of specific tables. Several, usually many, individuals of a species 

 occur together, so that it may be carded in various advantageous 

 positions in its larval, pupal, and dimorphic perfect states (I have 

 taken no males, which are rare and always autumnal) ; but the 

 examination must be immediate, since the colours are evanescent 

 and the form shrivels. Except where stated, the following were 

 taken during these two years in the garden at Monks Soham 

 House, Suffolk. Aphides were abundant everywhere in 1907, 

 but during 1908 their scarcity is very remarkable. 



BNTOM. SEPTEMBER, 1908. S 



