BEAKED INSECTS 387 



{Hydrometra). Their long, widely-extended legs supply them with the 

 necessary surface of support. 



Sub-Order 2: Homoptera. 



On the delicate stalks of meadow and other plants we often find 

 lumps of white froth looking like saliva, and supposed, like many other 

 strange things, to be due to the cuckoo (" cuckoo-spit "). Within these 

 balls we find a small green larva, which has inserted its beak (see bug) 

 deep into the stalk of the plant, on the juices of which it feeds. This 

 juice, after being deprived of its nutritious material, is again exuded 

 from the body of the larva, forming the above-mentioned froth, which 

 now envelops the larva, protecting it against birds and rapacious insects,, 

 After shedding its skin several times, the larva passes into the perfect 

 insect, known as the Frog- Hopper (Aphrophora spumaria). It is a 

 small gray insect, about J inch long, with four similarly constructed 

 wings (homopterous), and not unlike a small grasshopper. It lives on 

 bushes. 



In Southern countries, where homopterous insects abound, there arej 

 many species the males of which (see grasshopper) emit a loud musical 

 sound. One of these insects, the Manna Cicada (Cicada orni), is about 

 the size of our grasshopper. It sucks the sap of the manna-ash and 

 other trees. The juices flowing from the wounds, after the insect has 

 satisfied its appetite, harden, and furnish the " manna " of commerce. 



Sub-Order 3: Plant Lice (Phytophthires). 

 Family 1 : Green Flies (Aphidae). 



There is scarcely a plant which, either during spring or summer, 

 entirely escapes the ravages of the Green Fly (Aphis). Young, and 

 hence soft and juicy, leaves and shoots are often completely covered with 

 these pestiferous insects. Here they lie anchored to the plant, as it 

 were, by their deeply-inserted beaks, withdrawing from it the nutritive 

 juices to such an extent that the parts affected are crippled and die off, 

 and frequently the entire plant is destroyed. The absorbed plant-juices 

 pass rapidly through the bodies of the insects, and are again excreted (see 

 ants) in a semi-digested condition in the form of small drops very rich 

 in sugar, which are thrown off with the help of the hind-legs. In cases 

 where a tree is infested by many thousands of the insects, these drops 

 during dry weather (why only then ?) cover the leaves like a varnish, in 

 which case people talk of a " fall of honeydew." (Honeydew may, how- 



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