476 



My GARDEN. 



I have seen it in large quantities, and one year a vast colony alighted 

 in all the open courts of the Bank of England. It is a large handsome 

 species, with long legs, long antennas, and long joints to the legs. 



Fig. 1050. — Plum Aphis, magnified. 



Fig. 1052. — American Blight, 

 magnified. 



Fig. 1051. — Pea Aphis, magnified. 



One of the more remarkable aphides, which attacks two or three 

 out of my large collection of apple-trees, is the American Blight 

 {Schizoneura lanuginosa, fig. 1052J. It lives upon the stems of the 

 apple-trees, and when crushed stains linen like the cochineal : I 

 remember it ever since I was a child, because I incurred the wrath of 



my nurse by staining my pinafores with its 

 blood. It was supposed to have been im- 

 ported from America, but Harris considers 

 that it was introduced to America on fruit- 

 trees from Europe. It is reputed to live on 

 the roots as well as on the stems, but I have 

 not myself verified this. It is very injurious 



Fig. 1053. —Currant-leaf with Aphides. tO the trCCS. 



Some years, as in 1 871, the currant-trees round London were 

 severely injured by the Currant Aphis, which lives on the under 

 side of the leaves and causes them to pucker (fig. 1053). In 1872 

 a second species attackecl the tops of their shoots. Many of the trees 

 died. Sometimes the lettuces are destroyed by a root-feeding aphis 

 {Ancyla fuscicornis, fig. 10460;). Frequently the leaves of the carrot 

 are attacked by a species apt to escape notice. The vegetal marrows 

 were attacked in 1871 for the first time in my garden, on the under 



