580 A Plea for Small Birds. 



contains many genera, and a vast number of species differing 

 from one another in many essential particulars, though united in 

 general form and habits, and having many affinities in common. 

 These several Aphides, more vulgarly known as ' plant lice/ have 

 many very remarkable peculiarities in their mode of life, wherein 

 they differ from all other insects ; some of them being at one 

 period of their existence viviparous, and at another oviparous ; 

 some of those of the same species being winged, and others wing- 

 less : but they all follow the same occupation of preying on the 

 juices of the several plants they infest, to the carrying out of 

 their own economy, but to the manifest injury of the plant. By 

 way of example, let us take the case of the gooseberry blight or 

 fly, with which everybody is familiar, and let us very shortly 

 follow its career. The fly, a handsome, gay, innocent-looking 

 insect enough, as it darts about in the sunshine on its gauxy 

 wings, repairs to the gooseberry-tree, where she lays her eggs. 

 This species is one of the Saw Flies, and by means of her saw 

 or ovipositor she contrives to lay her eggs on the under side of the 

 leaf she has selected, all along the midrib, and then along the 

 side ribs, till all the principal ribs are garnished with eggs in 

 regular rows, and about seventy eggs are laid on that particular 

 leaf. Within a single day, these eggs begin to grow rapidly, and 

 within a week or ten days the grub makes its appearance, and im- 

 mediately begins to eat. After a short time the grubs descend the 

 footstalks, and, wandering in different directions, each finds a leaf 

 for itself, and the work of devastation progresses in real earnest. 



This is but a sample of the career of the gooseberry blight, and 

 the mischief it effects. But there are many other blights even 

 more pernicious than this the ' hop blight,' for example, upon 

 whose absence or presence in the hop gardens every year depends 

 the success or failure of the crop. There are ' turnip blights/ 

 again, which, as every farmer knows to his cost, in dry seasons in 

 early summer, destroy successive sowings of that valuable root, 

 and very materially injure the farmer's provision of food for his 

 sheep. There are ' apple blights ' and ' pear blights ' (more 

 particularly watched for in cider-making counties), which deposit 



