CHAPTER LIII 



THE PHYLLOXERA 



[Continued) 



' rT^HE yellow plant-louse found on the roots of the 

 X grape-vine, ' ' resumed Uncle Paul, " has no bent 

 for traveling: wingless, sluggish, and big-bellied, it 

 is ill adapted to locomotion. Where once its sucker 

 has implanted itself, there the creature is glad to 

 abide as long as the place is tenable. But when the 

 rootlet dies and begins to decay, then a new refectory 

 must be sought out, with a better-furnished table. 

 Accordingly the louse has to move. A persistent 

 explorer, it knows how, with patience and in course 

 of time, to make its way through cracks in the soil 

 from one root to another, and dares even to climb to 

 the surface, where, proceeding in the open air, it 

 emigrates from the exhausted vine-stock to the 

 neighboring one rich in sap; and there it pushes 

 down to the roots through some fissure in the ground. 

 "To this slow-goer a single one of our steps would 

 be a journey of excessive length. Therefore, to pro- 

 pagate its kind far and wide, it must have other 

 and quicker means than the extremely deliberate 

 method of locomotion just described. This other 

 method for planting colonies at a considerable dis- 

 tance has already been illustrated for us by the 



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