28 THE AGRICULTUEAL PESTS OF INDIA. 



resembling a hand-pump ; the sucker is fixed, the minia- 

 ture piston plays, and the sap the life-blood of the 

 plant is absorbed, and its leaves are destroyed. 



The oily (t'hela) honey-dew on the leaves is greedily 

 eaten by the red and brown ants, Formica rufa and F. 

 fusca ; and should the exudation be scanty, the ants, with 

 their antennae, stroke and fondle the aphis until a supply 

 be secreted. Both sexes only exist in August, and one 

 congress yields the young for six generations. After 

 pairing, the female deposits eggs, which in four days 

 animate. Immediately, from every pore in their bodies, 

 springs a cottony substance, which covers and protects 

 them, and they eat the leaf. As they grow, their white 

 cover vanishes, and pale-orange wingless insects appear, 

 the ' koongnee ' of the Jats. 



The Aphis lanigera does not attack cotton plants grow- 

 ing near hemp. They are destroyed by the lady-bird 

 (Goccinella) and by the lace-wing (Chyrosopus). Ed. 

 Rev., Oct. 1886; Moquin Tandon. 



Apidse. A family of hymenopterous insects, popularly 

 known as bees. The principal genera are Apis (the 

 honey bees), Melipona, Trigona, Bombus (the humble 

 bees), Apathus, Anthophora, Xylocopa (the carpenter 

 bees), Englossa, Osmia, Megachile (the leaf-cutting bees), 

 Anthocoma, Nomada, Halictus, Sphecodes. Some bees in 

 the East are markedly revengeful and even aggressive. 

 At the Harn Pal, on the Nerbada, bees have twice caused 

 Europeans to be drowned. The common hive-bee of 

 Britain is Apis rnellifica ; the ' Italian bee ' is Apis 

 ligustica; the principal honey bee of the East Indies is 

 the Apis dorsata. 



Araneidae, the spiders, an order of the Arachnoidea 

 class of animals, of which several thousand species are 



