

THE Cows THAT ANTS MILK 7 



you she was fat and well-favoured, as attractive a 

 young green-fly as you would be likely to come 

 across in a day's march on the surface of a rose- 

 twig. But once she sets to work, she lays big eggs 

 with a will (big, that is to say, compared with her 

 own size), till she has used up all her soft internal 

 material ; and when she has finished, she dies or, 

 rather, she ceases to be ; for there is nothing left 

 of her but a dried and shrivelled skin. 



During the winter, indeed in cold climates at 

 least the race of aphides dies out altogether for 

 the time being, or only protracts an artificial exist- 

 ence in the heated air of green-houses and drawing- 

 rooms. The species is represented at such dormant 

 periods by the fertilised eggs alone, which lie snug 

 among the folds or scales of the buds till March 

 or April comes back again to wake them. Then, 

 with the first genial weather, the eggs hatch out, 

 and a joyous new brood of aphides emerges. And 

 here comes in one of the greatest wonders ; for 

 these summer broods do not consist, like their 

 parents in autumn, of males and females, but of 

 imperfect mothers all mothers alike, all brother- 

 less sisters, and all budding out young as fast as 

 they can go, without the trouble and expense of 

 a father. They put forth their progeny as a tree 

 puts forth leaves, by mere division. The new 

 broods thus produced are budded out tail first, as 

 shown in No. 3, so that all the members of the 

 family stand with their heads in the same direction, 

 the mother moving on as her offspring increases ; 



