APHIS. 113 



species,, Pentatoma griseus, is interesting from the care which 

 the female takes of her young, not only in brooding over 

 her eggs, but in leading her little family about as a hen does 

 her chickens. 



APHIS. 



A specimen of the green or black blight will be very 

 interesting to the florist, although the Aphis of the elder 

 or the box are prettier in having variegated bodies. There 

 are no less than 160 known species, and few insects have a 

 more curious and interesting biography. ' Kirby and 

 Spence's Entomology/ and THistoire des Hemipteres, 

 de MM. Serville and Ainyot/ will give abundant informa- 

 tion to the student of natural history. 



I can only draw attention to the external form, and point 

 out the remarkable long antennae thrown backwards ; the 

 proboscis, fine and sharp, with which it pierces the young 

 shoots of our rose-trees, or the fibres on the under side of 

 our currant-trees and vines, causing them to curl up and 

 turn red. Those two horns on the back are tubes from, 

 which exude small drops of saccharine matter or honey- 

 dew, of which the ants are so fond that, wherever these 

 Aphides abound, there the Garden Ant will follow, and may 

 be seen sucking it from them. 



These Ants take absolute possession of some species. 

 The Aphis radicum, Avhich feed on the roots of plants, are 

 kept by the Yellow Ants in their formicaries under-ground, 

 and milked as cows are by us. This may be watched on 

 rose-trees or oak-trees, the little Ants following an Aphis, 

 tapping them, and pressing their sides to make them jerk 

 out the sweet fluid. 



The tarsi are only two-jointed, the eyes compound. 

 They are both winged and wingless, and the Aphis wings, 

 are always carried with the fan edges upward, and have 

 either a row cf booklets or a tuft of seven or eight hooks, 

 which attach the wing-case and wing together, like the 

 hamuli of the Hymenoptera. 



The rapid increase of these insects is astonishing: a 

 single Aphis may in one season become the parent of as 



8 



