CHAPTER X. 



INSECTS. FROG-HOPPERS, PLANT LICE, SCALE 

 INSECTS, BUGS AND FLEAS. 



THE next order* is composed of a few families of suc- 

 torial insects, the musical Cicadas, the Lantern flies, 

 the Cuckoo-spit insects, the Plant-lice and the Scale 

 insects. In all these the different parts of the mouth 

 are so modified in form, that they can only be recog- 

 nized as the representatives of true mandibles and 

 maxillae, they assume the shape and functions of fine 

 lancets working freely in a fleshy canal formed by the 

 lower lip, and the palpi are obsolete. These insects 

 live on vegetable juices, and it is needless to say that 

 they are so injurious to the plants they attack, that 

 the popular and comprehensive term " blight " is 

 always associated with their presence. With the 

 living individuals of the first two families we are not 

 familiar, the greater number of them being exotic, 

 but every one has seen the little saliva-like mass so 

 common on almost every plant in the garden, and 

 generally known at Harting as the Cuckoo-spit, in 

 France it is called, with equal propriety, the Frog-spit. 

 This is simply the secretion of the larva of Aphrophora 

 spumaria or Frog-hopper, the object of which is no 

 doubt to protect, the soft-bodied insect from the 

 scorching rays of the summer sun. In the perfect fly, 

 which is more remarkable for its leaping power (in 

 which alone it resembles the frog) than for its beauty, 

 the wings when at rest are deflexed, so as to form two 

 sloping sides meeting in a ridge along the back like 



Order HOMOPTERA. From the Greek homos, alike, and 

 pteron, a wing. Wings four, all entirely membranous. 



