270 
INSECTS WHICH DISTIL WATER. 
carious insect, which inhabits trees of the fig family, 
Ficus,) upward of twonty species of which are found 
hero. Seven or oight of thorn cluster round a spot on ona 
of tho smaller branches, and thoro koep up a constant dis 
tillation of a clear fluid, which, dropping to the ground, 
forms a littlo puddle below. If a vossel is placed undei 
them in tho evening, it contains three or four pints of fluid 
in the morping. The natives say that if a drop falls into 
the eyes it causes inflammation of these organs. To the 
question, whence is this fluid derived, tho people reply that 
tho insects suck it out of the tree; and our own natu- 
ralists give tho samo answor. I have nover seen an orifice, 
and it is scarcely possible that tho tree can yield so much. 
A similar but much smaller homoptcrous insect, of tho 
family Cercopidcc, is known in England as tho frog-hopper, 
( Aphrophora spumaria,) when full grown and furnished 
with wings, but whilo still in tho pupa stato it is called 
“ Cuckoo-spit,” from tho mass of froth in which it envelops 
itself. Tho circulation of sap in plants in our climate, 
especially of tho graminacem, is not quick enough to yield 
much moisture. Tho African species is five or six times 
tho sizo of the English. In the case of branches of the 
fig-tree, the point tho insects congrogato on is soon marked 
by a numbor of incipient roots, such as are thrown out 
when a cutting is inserted in tho ground for the purpose 
of starting another tree. I believo that both tho Engl* 9 * 1 
and African insocts belong to tho samo family, and differ 
only in sizo, and that tho chief part of tho moisture * e 
derived from tho atmosphoro. I leave >'t for naturalists to 
explain how theso littlo creatures distil both by night and 
day as much water as thoy please, and aro moro indopen 
dent than her majesty’s steamships with their apparatus 
for condensing steam; for, without coal, their abundant 
supplies of sea-water aro of no avail. I tried tho following 
experiment. Finding a colony of theso insects busily d* 9 " 
tilling on a branch of the Ricinus communis, or casfor-o* 
plant, 1 denuded about twenty inches of the hai k on the tm 0. 
