A N I) II O U T I U L T URAL REGISTER. 



1'UltL.ISHKU BV JOSEPH BaECK A CO., NO. M NOUTH M.VRKET STRIiliT, (Aohicultuoal Wasbiiouib.)— ALLEN PUTNAM, (lOITOR. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 8, 18J2. 



[HO. «•. 



FARMER 



llnrrU'i Report on the IniecU of MautchuMtls. 



PL.\NT LICR. 

 Iphidtt, or plant-lice, as lliey aro usually called, 

 aumns tlic most cxlraordmnry of insects. They 

 foiiiul upon almost nil parts of plants, the rool.<, 

 ns, youn^ shoots, buJs, anj leaves, and there is 

 coly a plant which does nut harbor one or two 

 Is peculiar to itself. Thoy arc, moreover, ex- 

 dinL'Iv prolific, for Rcamur has proved that one 

 vidual, in five generations, may become the 

 Tcnitor of nearly six thousand millions of dc- 

 id.inis. It often happens that the succulent 

 emitios and stems of plants "ill, in an incredi- 

 shiirt space of lime, become completely coated 

 1 a living mass of these little lice. These are 

 ally wingless, consisting of the young and of 

 fcmalci only ; for winged individuals appear 

 ' at particular seasons, usually in the autumn, 

 Siinielimcs in the ^spring, and these arc small 

 OS and larger females. After pairing, the lat- 

 l.iv their eggs upon or near the leaf-buds of the 

 It upon which they live, and, together with the 

 fs, soon afterwards perish. 



'he genus to which plant-lice belong is called 

 is, from a Greek word which signifies to ex- 

 st. The fallowing are the principal characters 

 vhich they may bo distinguished from other in- 

 s. 'I'heir bodies are short, oval, and eof\, and 

 furnished at the hinder extremity with two little 

 ;3, liiiobs, or pores, from which exude almost 

 •itantly minute drops of a fluid as sweet as 

 ey ; their heads are small, their beaks are very 

 » and tubular, their eyes are globular, but they 

 ? not eyelets, their anlennc are long, and usu- 



taper towards the extremity, and their legs 

 also long and very slender, and there art- only 

 joints to their feet. Their i:pper are nearly 

 ;e as large as the lower wings, are much long- 

 than tho body, arc gradually widened towards 

 extremity, and nearly triangular; they are al- 

 t vertical when at rest, and cover the body 

 ve like a very sharp-ridged roof. 



he winged plant-lice provide for a succession 

 their race by stocking the plants with eggs in 



autumn, as before stated. These are hatched 

 luc time in the spring, and the young lice im- 

 liately begin to pump up sap from tho tender 

 tea and Khoota, increase rapidly in size, and in a 

 rt time come to maturity. In this slate, it is 

 nd ihnt the brood, without a single exception, 

 sisls wholly of females, which arc wingless, but 



in a condition immediately to continue their 

 d. Their young, however, arc not hatched from 

 fs, but ore produced alive, and each female may 

 the mother of fifteen or twenty young lice in 



ci>urse of a single day. The plant-lice of this 

 ond generation are also wingless females, which 



w up and have their young in due time ; and 

 s brood after brood is produced, even to the 

 entb generation or more, without the appearance 

 intervention, throushout the whole leuun, of a 



iinglo male. This extraordinary kind of propaga- 

 tion ends in the auluiiin with the birth of a brood 

 of male.i and females, wliich in doe time ac<iuirc 

 wings and pair; eggs oro then laid by these fe- 

 mules, and with the death of these winged individu- 

 als, which soon follows, the race becomes extinct 

 for the season. 



Plant-lice seem to love society, and often hcid 

 tonethur in dense mosses, each one remaining 

 fixed to the plant by means of its long tubulnr 

 beak ; and they rarely change iheir places till they 

 have e.xhausted the part first attacked. The atti- 

 tudes and manners of tlieso little creatures are ex- 

 ceedingly oniusing. When disturbed, like restive 

 horses, ihev begin to kick and sprawl in the most 

 ludicrous manner. They may be seen at times 

 suspended by their beaks alone, and throwing up 

 their legs as if in a high frolic, but too much en- 

 gaged in sucking to withdraw their beaks. As 

 they take in great quantities of sap, they would 

 soon become gorged if they did not get rid of the 

 superabundant fluid through the two little tubes or 

 pores at the extremity of their bodies. When one 

 of them gets running-over full, it seems to commu- 

 nicate its uneasy sensations, by a kind of animal 

 mognetism, to the whole flock, upon which they 

 all, with one accord, jerk U[)«ards their bodies, and 

 eject a shower of tho honeyed fluid. 



The leaves and bark ol plants much infested by 

 these insects are often completely sprinkled over 

 with drops of this sticky fluid, which, on drying, 

 become dark-colored, and greatly disfigure the 

 foliage. This appearance has been denominated 

 honey-dew ; but there is another somewhat similar 

 production observable on plants, after very dry 

 weather, wliich has received the same name, and 

 consists of on extravasation or oozing of the sap 

 from the leaves. We are often .apprized of the 

 presence of plant-lice on plants growing in the 

 open air, by the ants ascending and descending the 

 stems. By observing the motions of the latter, we 

 soon ascertain that the sweet fluid discharged by 

 the lice is the occasion of these visits. The stems 

 swarm with slim and hungry ants, running upwards, 

 and others lazily descending, with their bellies 

 swelled almost to bursting. When arrived in the 

 immediate vicinity of the plant-lice, they greedily 

 wipe up the sweet fluid which has distilled from 

 them, and, when thi.s fails, they station themselves 

 among the lice, ond catch the drops as they fall. 

 Tho lice do not Kccm in the least annoyed by the 

 ants, but live on the best possible terms with them ; 

 and, on the other hand, the ants, though unsparing 

 of other insects weaker than themselves, upon 



lice cast thrir nkiiis, the ants iiialantly remove the 

 hitler, nor «ill they allow any dirt or rubbiitli to 

 remain upon or about tlii'iii. They even protect 

 them from their enemies, and run about them in 

 the hot sunshine to drive away the l:ttle ichneumon 

 flics that arc forever hovering near to deposit their 

 ogg.< ill the bodies of tho lice. 



I'lant-lice dilTor very much in form, color, cloth- 

 ing, and in the length of Ihe honey-tubes. Some 

 havo these lubes quite long, as the rose-louse, 

 •Iphis ros(t, which is green, and has a little coni- 

 cal projection or stylet, as it is called, at the extre- 

 mity of the body, between the two honey-tubea. 

 Thu cabbage-louse, Aphia hrussicn', has also long 

 honey-tubes, but its body is covered with a whitish 

 mealy aubstanre. This species is very abundant 

 on tho under eide of cabbage leaves in the month 

 of August. The largest species known to me is 

 found in clusters beneath the limbs of the pig-nut 

 hickory (Ciiiija poninaj in all stages of growth, 

 from the 1st to the middle of July. It is the .Iphit 

 cary<t of my Catalogue. Its body, in the winged 

 state, measures one qunrter of an inch to the end of 

 the abdomen.and above four-tenths of an inch to the 

 tips of the upper wings, which expand rather more 

 than scven-trnlhs (jf an inch, it has no terminal 

 stylet, and tho honey-tubes rrc very short. Its 

 body is covered with a bluish white substance like 

 the bloom of a plum, with four rows of little trans- 

 verse black spots on the back ; the top of the tho- 

 rax, and the veins of the wings are black, as are 

 also the sha'iks, the feet, and the antennie, wljioh 

 are clothed with black hairs; the thighs arc red- 

 dish brown. This species sucks the sap from the 

 limbs and not from the leaves of the hickory. Tiiere 

 is another large species, living in the same way on 

 t.'ie under side of the branches of various kinds of 

 willows, and clustered together in great numbers. 

 About the first of October they are found in the 

 winged state. The body is one-tenth of an inch in 

 length, and the wings expand about four-tenths. 

 The stylet is wanting; tho body is black and with- 

 out spots ; the wings are transparent, but their veins, 

 the short honey tubercles, the third joint of the 

 antennin, and the legs, are tawny yellow. This 

 species cannot be identical wiili the willow-louse, 

 Jlphis snlicis of Linnajus, which has a spotted body ; 

 and therefore I propose to call it ^Iphia sidicli, the 

 plant-louse of willow groves. When crushed, it 

 communicates a stain of a reddish or deep orange 

 color. 



Some plant-lice live in the ground and derive 

 their nourishment from the roots of plants. We 

 annually lose many of our herbaceous plants, if 

 cultivated in a light soil, from the exhausting al- 

 Upon pulling 



which they frequently prey, tre:it the plant-lice 



with the utmost gentleness, caressing them with | tacks of these subterranean lice 

 their antennae, and apparently inviting them to give \ up China Asters, which seemed to be perishing 

 out the fluid by patting their sides. Nor are the 1 from no visible cause, I have found hundreds of 

 lice inattcntivn to these solicitations, when in a little lice, of a white color, closely clustered to- 

 state to gratify the anU, for whose sake they not gei her on the roots. I could never discover any 

 only seem to shorten tho periods of the discharge, [ of them that wore winged, and therefore conclude 

 but actually yield the fluid when thus pressed. A from this circumslonco as well as from their pecu- 

 sin-Tlc louse has been known to give it drop by ! liar situation, that they never acquire wings, 

 drop successively to a number of ants, that were Whether these are of the same species as the .^/yAi» 

 waiting anxiously to receive it. When the plant- ' rarficiim of Europe, I cannot o.ccrtain, as no sufli- 



