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ARTHROPODS: INSECTS. 



Plant Lice, or Aphides. 



These Insects have the body short, and at the hind 

 extremity there arc two little tubes, from which come 

 minute drops of a \-ery s\\'eet fluid. Aphides inhabit 

 all kinds of plants, the lea\-cs and softer portions being 

 often completeh* covered with them. 

 The young are hatched in the spring, 

 and soon come to maturity, and, what 

 is remarkable, the whole brood consists 

 of wingless females ; and what is still 

 more remarkable, these females bring forth living 

 young, each female producing fifteen or twenty in a 

 day. These young arc also wingless females, and at 

 maturity bring forth living young, ^\'hich are also all 

 wingless females, and in their turn bring forth living 

 young ; and in this way brood after brood is produced, 

 even to the fourteenth generation, in a single season. 

 But the last brood in autumn contains both males and 

 females, which stock the plants with eggs, and then 

 perish. Reaumur, a celebrated naturalist, has proved 

 that a single Aphis, in five generations, may have about 

 six thousand millions of descendants ! \Miere\'er Plant 

 Lice abound, ants collect to feed upon the honey-like 

 fluid produced by them ; and the most friendly rela- 

 tions exist between these two kinds of insects. An 

 Aphis has been known to gi\'e in succession a drop 

 of the fluid to each of a number of ants. 



Scorpion Bugs. 



These Bugs live in the water, and can sting severely. 

 They devour other insects, which they seize with their 

 fore legs, which act as pincers. 



