126 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ignorance. Now in the very short time placed at my disposal 

 to-day I can only call your attention to a few of the insects 

 which I have watched and carefully drawn or photographed from 

 nature. The first of these shown upon the screen is a very 

 small piece of a leaf from a Sycamore tree containing winged 

 and wingless specimens of the Sycamore " Green Fly" (fig. 18). 

 I really do not think a gardener could be found who was 

 ignorant of the insects known as " Blight," or M The Fly," of 



Fig. 18. 



which there are hundreds of named species figured in British 

 Aphidre by Buckton ; but even in our wholesale destruction of 

 these a very little time spent in studying their habits would be 

 of value, and enable us to distinguish valuable friends and 

 helpers in the very camp of our enemies, where may be noticed 

 white eggs of an oval form nesting between the ribs of the leaf : 

 these are the eggs of the gardener's greatest friend. The Wasp 

 Fly, or Hoverer Fly, belonging to the genus Syrphus (fig. 19), 

 shows the maggot-like larva of this " blessing," which when 



