HONEY-DEW 171 



hordes in rapid succession. Ilonco various kinds of aphides 

 are among tlie most droadod plapfuos of af,'ricnlturists. The 

 *ily,' whicli Kentish farmers know so well on liops, is an 

 aphis specialised for that piirticiilar hine ; and, wlicn once 

 it appears hi the f^'iirdens, il spreads with startlin,!jf rapidity 

 from one end of the l()n<,' rows to the other. Tiie pliylloxera 

 which has spoilt the French vineyards is a root-feediii'^ 

 form that r backs the vine, and kills or maims the plant 

 terribly, by sucking the vital juices on their way up into 

 the fresh-forming foliage. The ' American blight ' on apple 

 trees is yet another member of the same family, a wee 

 creeping cottony creature that hides among the fissures of 

 the bark, and drives its very long beak far down into the 

 green sappy layer underlying the dead outer covering. In 

 fact, almost all the best-known 'blights' and bladder- 

 forming insects are aphides of one kind or another, affect, 

 ing leaves, or stalks, or roots, or branches. 



It is one of the most remarkable examples of the 

 Hmitation of Imman ])o\vers that while we can easily ex- 

 terminate large animals like the wolf and the bear in 

 England, or the punui and the wolverine in the settled 

 States of America, we should be so comparatively weak 

 against the Colorado Ix-etle or the fourteen-year locust, and 

 so absolutely powerless against the hop-ily, the turnip-fly, 

 and the phylloxera. The smaller and the more insignificant 

 our enemy, viewed individually, the more dilKcult is he to 

 cope with in the mass. All the elephants in the world could 

 have been hunted down and annibilated, in all probability, 

 with far less labour than has been expended upon one single 

 little all but microscopic parasite in ]'']'ance alone. The 

 enormous rapidity of reproduction in the family of a])hides 

 is the true cause of our helplessness before them. It has 

 been calculated that a single aphis may during its own life- 

 time become the progenitor of 5,yOi,yOO,000 descendants. 

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