MALE APHIDES. 



79 



orange, some of sober brown, colours worn in accordance, it 

 is said, with their youth, middle, or advanced age. All these 

 " Mercuries " wear wings ; but even their pinions assume with 

 equal propriety a corresponding hue, deepening from white 

 to transparent black according to the period of their wearer's 

 standing. Might not our evergreen beaux (for evergreen 

 belles are privileged even by example of feminine Aphides) 

 take a hint from these sensibly clad seniors of the sap-sucking 

 race ? Perhaps, however, it is scarcely fair to quote as patterns 

 in anything such out-of-the-way creatures as those we are 

 describing strangest of animals ! but especially in the paternal 

 character. The Insect race is celebrated for having numerous 

 progenies, but these, our patriarchal pucerons, are far superior 

 to all the rest. They are no fathers of ten in family, nor of 

 twenty, nor of twenty times twenty, but (marvel of multipli- 

 cation !) each of these sires can boast of being the actual parent 

 of ten generations, all, save the last, made up of daughters ! 

 You who doubt whether this is true, or may desire to know 

 how it has been proved, we refer to the scientific pages of 

 Bonnet, Trembley, Richardson, Rennie, and a host of other 

 unimpeachable authorities. 



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