CANTO iv. OF GOOD AND EVlt. 157 



Ten thousand seeds each pregnant poppy sheds . 

 Profusely scatter'd from its waving heads; 3.5O 



The countless Aphides, prolific tribe, 

 With greedy trunks the honey'd sap imbibe; 



Ten thousand seeds, 1. 349. The fertility of plants ia respect to 

 seeds is often remai'kable; from one root in one summer the seeds 

 of zea, maize, amount to 2000; of inula, elecampane, to 3000; of 

 helianthus, sunflower, to 4000; of papaver, poppy, 3000; of 

 nicotiana, tobacco, to 40320; to this must be added the perennial 

 roots, and the buds. Buds, which are so many herbs, in one tree, 

 the trunk of which does not exceed a span in thickness, frequently 

 amount to 10000; Lin. Phil. Bot. p. 86. 



The countless Aphides, 1. 351. The aphises, pucerons, or vine- 

 fretters, are hatched from an egg in the early spring, and are all 

 called females, as they produce a living offspring about once in a 

 fortnight to the ninth generation, which are also all of them females; 

 then males are also produced, and by their intercourse the females 

 become oviparous, and deposite their eggs on the branches, or in the 

 bark to be hatched in the ensuing spring. 



This double mode of reproduction, so exactly resembling the butls 

 and seeds of trees, accounts for the wonderful increase of this insect, 

 Avhich, according to Dr. Richardson, consists often generations, and 

 of fifty at an average in each generation ; so that the sum of fifty 

 multiplied by fifty, and that product again multiplied by fifty nine 

 times, would give the product of one egg only in countless millions ^ 

 to which must be added the innumerable egg& laid by the tenth 

 generation for the renovation of their progeny in the ensuing spring. 



The honey'd sap, 1. 352. The aphis punctures with its fine proboscis 

 the sap-vessels of vegetables without any visible wound,, and thus- 

 drinks the sap-juice, or vegetable chyle, as it ascends. Hence on, 

 the twigs of trees they stand with their heads downwards, as I have 

 observed, to acquire this ascending sap-juice with greater facility,. 



