﻿NOTES ON A LIME TREE APHIS NEAV TO BRITAIN. 75 



One is at once struck by the relatively small size of the 

 progeny of the large globular foundress, both in the npterae and 

 alatae. At the time of ray visit, very few alatae were to be seen, 

 but from material 1 brought away great numbers of alate females 

 commenced to hatch out on tue 15th, and continued to do so 

 until the 20th. Koughly, within the week all had become 

 winged, and this was also "noticed by Del Guercio at Florence. 



The alate viviparous females — the fundatrigenia— have a 

 black head and thorax, antennae, and legs, and a yellow-green 

 to deep-green abdomen. The wings are somewhat smoky, with 

 dark veins. The winged females were noticed to fly away from 

 the trees, and tho>e hatched out in the breeding jars at once 

 fiew away on being released, and showed if confined great 

 agitation and apparent desire to migrate. 



Those kept in a large breeding cage dropped their young on 

 the soil. These very minute young were pale yellow, and whilst 

 still very small crawled into the ground. Later I found them 

 attached to the roots of grass and primroses growing in the 

 breeding cage. The number of young produced by each female 

 was not counted, but from the vast numbers found in the jars, 

 it must be very great. This aphid then leaves the lime trees in 

 June and, according to Dei Guercio's observations in Florence, 

 returns to them in September. Of this return to the lime I am 

 unfortunately unable to speak, but I can fill in some of the 

 intervening stages, which are spent in the soil, just as we find is 

 done by the allied Ana'cia coriti, Fabricius, and the Schizoneura 

 iilmi, Linnjeus. The return migrants or sexupara come from 

 the soil and produce the sexuales, and the ova deposited 

 on the limes give rise to the "queen foundress," described 

 here, and which deposits its young on the young tender top 

 shoots ; these seem to arrange themselves at first in a row up 

 the shoot and then on the median ribs of the leaves. According 

 to Del Guercio, who found this curious aphid in the Florentme 

 gardens and neighbourhood, it occurs, as I have found it, " in the 

 centre of bunches of leaves " in various kinds of Tilia. Del 

 Guercio found infection in March and April in town gardens, 

 and in June and July on the hills and more elevated positions 

 above Pratolius on Tilia platypht/llns, Scop,, and noticed that 

 on this lime it rolled up the leaf, which it did not do in Tilia 

 europcea. At Bearsted I noticed that this aphid was very largely 

 attended by ants {Lasiusfuliginosus), which formed a long black 

 column coming from and returning to the garden near the 

 attacked tree. The ants were found hurriedly passing back- 

 wards and forwards in a line about six inches wide, between 

 their nest and the aphid-laden lime tree. There must have been 

 thousands of them. Those going to the tree kept on one side, 

 those returning from it on the other. The latter were frequently 

 noticed to be carrying the aphids back with them. When the 



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