HARVEST-FLIES. 203 



.and other noxious insects may fairly be attributed to tl;e 

 exterminating war which has wantonly been waged upon 

 our insect-eating birds, and we may expect the evil to in- 

 crease unless these little friends of the farmer are protected, 

 or left undisturbed to multiply, and follow their natural 

 habits. Meanwhile, some advantage may be derived from 

 encouraging the breed of our domestic fowls. A flock of 

 young chickens or turkeys, if suffered to go at large in a 

 garden, while the mother is confined within their sight and 

 hearing, imder a suitable crate or cage, will devour great 

 numbers of destructive insects ; and our farmers should be 

 urged to pay more attention than heretofore to the rearing 

 of chickens, young turkeys, and ducks, with a view to the 

 benefits to be derived from their destruction of insects. 



II. HARVEST-FLIES, &c. (Hemiptera Homopl ra.) 



By many entomologists this division is raised to the rank 

 of a separate order, under the name of Homopter.v ; but 

 the insects arranged in it are, as already stated, much more 

 like the true Hemiptera, or bugs, than they are to the in- 

 sects in any other order, which shows the propriety of keeping 

 these two divisions together, and that separately they hold 

 only a subordinate importance compared with other orders. 



The insects belonging to this division are divided by nat- 

 uralists into three large groups, or tribes. 



1. Harvest-flies, or Cicadians (CicADADiE) ; having short 

 antennee, which are awl -shaped or tipped with a little bris- 

 tle; wings and wing-covers, in both sexes, inclined at the 

 sides of the body; three joints to their feet; firm and hard 

 skins ; and in which the females have a piercer, lodged in 

 a furrow beneath the extremity' of the body. 



2. Plant-Hce (Aphididje) ; having antennae longer than 

 the head, and threadhke or tapering from the root to the 

 end ; wing-covers and wings frequently wanting in the 

 females ; feet two-jointed ; the body very soft, generally fur- 

 nished with two little tubercles at the end : no piercer in the 

 females. 



