HEMIPTERA. 47 



side of the leaf; but the melons and cucumbers in the glass structures 

 are pretty constantly visited by this pest. Sometimes the leaves of 

 our cabbage plants are infested, but never in my garden to such an 

 extent as I have seen them elsewhere. I have noticed beet-root and 

 mangold extensively destroyed, but not at my garden. Grasses have 

 a pecuUar aphis. Rose-trees are frequently injured by aphides, which 

 attack the young shoots. In some gardens honeysuckles are con- 

 stantly so severely attacked as to destroy their appearance, but 

 mine have not so suffered. Ivy is sometimes seriously injured. The 

 leaves of the apple-tree are often visited by a species totally different 

 from the American Blight, but it has never been seen at my garden. 

 The limes are constantly visited by such numbers that much honey 

 is produced for the bees and wasps ; the beech is also similarly infested. 

 We have had two or three large willows killed by thousands of a very 

 large kind of aphis, which Mr. Buckton has determined from my 

 specimens to be the Lachnus Saligiia (plate 23, figs. 1-3), although it may 

 possibly be the A. salicis of Curtis, but not of Walker or Linnseus. 

 The oak has several species, including 

 the variety with long rostrum (fig. 

 1054), which lives in the cracks in the 

 oak bark ; and the sycamores have 

 a very large species on their leaves, 



which is followed by a black fungus. ^'°- 1054— Aphis Quercus, magnified. 



I might cite many other examples, but I have mentioned enough to show* 

 how formidable these creatures are, from the variety of plants which 

 they attack, and on account of the vast quantities which feed on a 

 single plant. It is a desideratum to have good figures of all these 

 creatures. I am well pleased that Mr. Buckton is undertaking this 

 task, as an accurate drawing from nature of any natural object is a 

 gift to the world, and a contribution to exact knowledge ; for the 

 pencil can delineate what the pen is unable to describe. Good drawings 

 contribute much to compensate for the imperfection of words and 

 language. 



Allied to the plant-lice, and equally destructive, we have the Cocci, 



