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APHIDES.* 
By Epwarp A. Fircg. 
Ir was Latreille who divided the Hemiptera into the two 
sub-orders Heteroptera and Homoptera. The latter includes the 
Froghoppers (Cicadide), the cuckoo-spit hoppers (Cercopide), 
the ticklers (Thripide), the leaf-hoppers (Psyllide), the bark-lice 
(Coccide), and the plant-lice (A phidide). 
According to Packard, the homopterous Hemiptera stand the 
higher in rank, “as the body is more cephalized, the parts of 
the body more specialized, and in the Aphide, which top the 
series, we have a greater sexual differentiation, the females being 
both sexual and asexual, the latter by a budding process and 
without the interposition of the male producing immense numbers 
of young, which feed in colonies.’ (‘Guide to the Study of 
Insects,’ 6th edition, p. 518.) 
Aphides, popularly: known as_ plant-lice or smother-flies, 
abound everywhere and in almost every situation, from the roots 
of grasses to the topmost leaves of forest trees. There are few to 
~whom they are not known, vulgarly if not scientifically. As Mr. 
Buckton observes, ‘‘Some species of Aphis are hardy enough to 
thrive on the stony heaths of Scotland and Northumberland, 
whilst others will live almost in the reach of the spray of the sea- 
shore.” I can go further, for I have found Aphis asteris, W1k., 
living 150 yards away from land on the Essex saltings, which are 
covered by the tide every day for about eight hours out of the 
twenty-four. These plant-lice are to be found on every part of 
the plant; some species affect the roots, others the trunks or 
twigs of trees and the stems of plants, others the leaves, while 
some only attack the flower-stalks or flowers, and a few, as the 
grain Aphis, the fruit. There are some few botanical families 
which are apparently exempt from their attack. Buckton mentions 
the Fumariacee, the Gentiane, and the Iridee. Aquatic plants 
even are not spared, for our beautiful water-lily (Nymphea alba) 
is often in certain years almost completely annihilated by the 
attacks of Rhopalosiphum nymphee, and certain other water- 
plants are commonly infested by other species. Of the very 
*Monograph of the British Aphides, by George Bowdler Buckton, F.R.S., 
F.L.S., F.C.S,, &e. London: Printed for the Ray Society. Vol. I., 1876, Vol. IL, 
1879, 
