34 



APHROPHORA SPUM ARIA— CUCKOO SPIT. 



J. C. Chapais, St. Denis-en-bas, P.Q. 



Very often, by the end of June, if you feel anxious to see how your 

 hay is growing in your meadows and take a walk through them, you will 

 find on your return that you have collected on your trousers some matter 

 having very much the appearance of froth ; and perhaps you will also have 

 noticed some of this froth on a few of the hay plants, specially on timothy, 

 in the meadow. The froth indicates simply the presence of an insect 

 known under the scientific name of Aphrophora spumaria. As that insect 

 sometimes causes some damage to certain plants, I purpose writing a short 

 notice about it with the object of familiarizing the farmers with it and its 

 habits. 



I shall first give the scientific description together with the common 

 appellations of the insect: Class, Insecta; Order, Hemiptera; Sub-order 

 Homoptera; Family, Cicadellidae; Genus, Aphrophora; Species, Aphro- 

 phora spumaria. (From the Greek AphropJioros — Foam-bearing.) This 

 insect is also known under the common appellations of cuckoo spit, 

 frog spit, and it is further called a cicadella, a name which is derived from 

 that of the insect's family. 



If you pull up a plant bearing one of those froth masses and blow 

 lightly on it to lay bare the stem, you will find an insect of a greenish colour 

 motionless under the foam which covered it, and this is the larva of the 

 Aphrophora. It measures 0.19 to 0.51 of an inch in length; its general 

 aspect gives it the appearance of a small cicada, hence the name of cicadella 

 given to the family to which it belongs. It differs from the adult insect 

 only by the absence of wings and of the genital organs. The head, the 

 thorax and the legs are black. The abdomen, greenish and soft, has its 

 last segment black. This larva is firmly fixed on the stem of the plant. 

 Its little rostrum or beak, sunk in the soft tissues, sucks up the sap which 

 constitutes its food; it throws out as excrement a semi-fluid matter into 

 which it injects simultaneously gaseous bubbles. This frothy substance 

 accumulates around the small larva and finally covers and hides it com- 

 pletely. 



In that queer little den, the larva grows, and moults many times; the 

 larval skins may be seen mixed with the froth. At the end of its develop- 

 ment wing rudiments appear, and it is then a nymph. The froth emission 

 stops at that time, and dries inside, a thin pellicle only being left. 



