HONEY-DEW 161 



Everybody knows the aphides well by sight, in one of 

 their forms at least, the familiar rose aphis ; but probably 

 few people ever look at them closely and critically enough 

 to observe how very beautiful and wonderful is the organisa- 

 tion of their tiny limbs hi all its exquisite detail. If you 

 pick off one good-sized wingless insect, however, from a 

 blighted rose-leaf, and put him on a glass slide under a low 

 power of the microscope, you will most likely be quite sur- 

 prised to find what a lovely little creature it is that you 

 have been poisoning wholesale all your life long with 

 diluted tobacco-juice. His body is so transparent that you 

 can see through it by transmitted light : a dainty glass 

 globe, you would say, of emerald green, set upon six 

 tapering, jointed, hairy legs, and provided in front with 

 two large black eyes of many facets, and a pair of long 

 and very flexible antennae, easily moved in any direction, 

 but usually bent backward when the creature is at rest so 

 as to reach nearly to his tail as he stands at ease upon his 

 native rose-leaf. There are, however, two other features 

 about him which specially attract attention, as being very 

 characteristic of the aphides and their allies among all 

 other insects. In the first place, his mouth is provided 

 with a very long snout or proboscis, classically described as 

 a rostrum, with which he pierces the outer skin of the rose- 

 shoot where he lives, and sucks up incessantly its sweet 

 juices. This organ is common to the aphis with all the 

 other bugs and plant-lice. In the second place, he has 

 half-way down his back (or a little more) a pair of very 

 peculiar hollow organs, the honey tubes, from which exudes 

 that singular secretion, the honey-dew. These tubes are 

 not found in quite all species of aphides, but they are very 

 common among the class, and they form by far the most 

 conspicuous and interesting organs in all those aphides 

 which do possess them. 



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