RAVAGES OF APHIDES. 177 



juicy luxuriant shoot, being wingless ; while those on a dry 

 and sapless branch, are gifted with pinions to waft them in 

 search of better provender. Supposing this idea to be correct, 

 we have herein another striking instance, added to the many, 

 of providing care in that Power which careth for all, and 

 adapts for all the means to the exigence. 



If we examine, now, the wingless multitude the canaille 

 of our rose-bud we shall find that the individuals which 

 compose it have shorter legs and flatter bodies than their 

 winged superiors, and that they differ exceedingly in size from 

 one another. For the most part their colour is a light green, 

 though some are of a pale red ; but however else they differ, 

 all, both winged and wingless, are furnished with one remark- 

 able appendage common to the whole Aphis tribe, to whatever 

 plant peculiar, from the lordly oak to the lowly briar. This 

 is the hamtellum, trunk, or sucking-pipe, appended beak-like 

 to the head, and which, consisting of a tube both pointed and 

 perforated, serves the double purpose of piercing the leaf and 

 sucking its juices. 



The pipes of these our little ravagers of the rose, are but as 

 beaklets compared with those of their brethren of the oak ;* 

 yet they form, we can tell you, no despicable instruments of 

 destruction, employed as they are by thousands in simultaneous 

 and incessant labour. And this considered, who can wonder 

 at the marvellous and unsightly changes, the spoil and havoc, 



* Oak Aphides, (A. quercus.) 



