A Plea for Small Birds. 581 



their eggs singly in the very centre of the bud or calyx of the 

 opening blossom of the apple-tree ; and from every such egg 

 a grub is hatched, which eats into the blossom and destroys the 

 fruit. There are blights, again, familiar to every observer in the 

 oak, the larch, the rose, the lime, and many another tree or plant. 

 Indeed, I believe I may say without exaggeration that there is no 

 plant without its plant-louse, or aphis, or blight, just as there is 

 no species of animal or bird or insect without its parasite. These 

 blights vary in colour : sometimes they are black, sometimes 

 black and white, sometimes gray; but (far more often than 

 <all other colours put together) green of various shades and 

 hues. The true blight or aphis has a long trunk or sucker which 

 is used as a pump or siphon, through which the sap of the plant 

 is drawn up ; and as all blights infest the young and juicy shoots 

 and leaves of plants for the purpose of sap-sucking, they cause no 

 small injury to such plants as they honour by their visits. 



There is one advantage which some of the aphides confer in 

 the honey-dew, as it is called, so well known to bee-keepers, and 

 so highly esteemed by bees. Honey-dew is, without doubt, a 

 secretion from the aphides, and is appreciated by ants no less than 

 by bees : nay, there is nothing in the whole range of entomology 

 more curious and interesting than the affection which ants show 

 for the aphides, which some naturalists have described as their 

 domestic ' cattle,' and which it is certain they diligently wait 

 upon, which they regularly milk, and in whose produce they 

 delight. Patient observation has determined that they do this 

 with the utmost care, licking them with their tongues, and pro- 

 tecting them from the parasites which infest them; for the 

 aphides, too, are troubled with parasites, after the famous saying, 



' Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, 

 The little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum : 

 And the great fleas themselves have got some greater fleas to go on, 

 And greater fleas have greater fleas, and greater fleas, and so on.' 



But as I am not writing a history of the aphides, I forbear 

 to dilate on this very interesting race, but for further par- 

 ticulars refer to the splendid monograph on them, by the pen of 



