172 HONEY-DEW 



Each imperfect female produces about ninety young ones, 

 and lives long enough to see its children's children to the 

 fifth generation. Now, ninety multiplied by ninety four 

 times over gives the number above stated. Of course, 

 this makes no allowance for casualties which must be 

 pretty frequent : but even so, the sum-total of aphides 

 produced within a small garden in a single summer must 

 be something very extraordinary. 



It is curious, too, that aphides on the whole seem to 

 escape the notice of insect-eating birds very tolerably. I 

 cannot, in fact, discover that birds ever eat them, their 

 chief real enemy being the little lizard-like larva of the 

 lady-bird, which devours them everywhere greedily in 

 immense numbers. Indeed, aphides form almost the sole 

 food of the entire lady-bird tribe in their earlier stages of 

 existence ; and there is no better way of getting rid of 

 blight on roses and other garden plants than to bring in a 

 good boxful of these active and voracious little grubs from 

 the fields and hedges. They will pounce upon the aphides 

 forthwith as a cat pounces upon the mice in a well- stocked 

 barn or farmyard. The two-spotted lady-bird in particular 

 is the determined exterminator of the destructive hop-fly, 

 and is much beloved accordingly by Kentish farmers. No 

 doubt, one reason why birds do not readily see the aphis of 

 the rose and most other species is because of their prevail- 

 ing green tint, and the close way in which they stick to the 

 leaves or shoots on whose juices they are preying. But in 

 the case of many black and violet species, this protection 

 of imitative colour is wanting, and yet the birds do not seem 

 to care for the very conspicuous little insects on the broad 

 bean, for example, whose dusky hue makes them quite 

 noticeable in large masses. Here there may very likely be 

 some special protection of nauseous taste in the aphides 

 themselves (I will confess that I have not ventured to try 



