ENTOMOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



APRIL, 1833. 



Art. XXIII. Observations on Blight. By Rusticus. 



Sir, — I have another Uttle rascal that eats my apples and 

 pears ; but, as I have not made myself master of his history, I 

 will leave him over for another summer for examination ; he 

 eats down the stalks of the pears, particularly when they are 

 about the size of gooseberries, and causes them to tumble 

 down by hundreds : I dare say I shall find him out by and by, 

 and in the meantime, I will give some account of the regular 

 blight — the true blight — the only insect which I will acknow- 

 ledge to be blight. 



The true blight, or Aphis, is a quiet, dull, stupid looking 

 insect, mostly without wings, but sometimes it has four, two of 

 which are much larger and longer than the other two, and 

 fold over and hide them, reaching beyond the body and 

 meeting together behind it ; these wings are generally as clear 

 as crystal, with a few veins in them, yet if you hold the 

 insect in the sunshine, and examine him through a glass, you 

 will find they take all the colours of the rainbow; you will 

 also find he has a long trunk or sucker, which is used as a 

 pump or syphon, through which the sap of plants is drawn. I 

 have sometimes seen this sucker so long as to pass under the 

 breast and legs, and reach a considerable distance behind the 

 body, but it is not generally so. All blights infest the young 

 and juicy shoots, and leaves of plants, for the purpose of 

 sap-sucking; and the plants honoured by their operations 



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