aphis. 
Which is found on the different kinds of plants, and if narrowly watched, they will 
willows. When bruised, these insects stain be found to devour the aphides wherever 
the finders with red. Towards the end of they find them. The same may be ob- 
September multitudes of the full-grown in- served of the lady-bird in its perfect state, 
sects of this species, both with and without Another most formidable enemy to the 
win«s, desert the willows on which they aphis is a very minute, black, and slender 
feed' ’and ramble over every neighbouring ichneumon fly, which eats its way out of 
object in such numbers that we can handle the aphis, leaving the dry inflated skin of 
nothin" in their vicinity without crushing the insect adhering to the leaf like a small 
some of them, while those in a younger, pearl : such may always be found where 
or less advanced state, still remain in large aphides are in plenty. Different species of 
masses upon the trees. Aphis ros® is very aphides are infested with different ichneu- 
frequent, during the summer months, on the mons. There is scarcely a division of nature, 
young shoots and buds of roses : it is of a in which the musca or fly is not found : of 
bright green colour : the males are furnish- these, one division, the aphidivora, feeds en- 
ed with large transparent wings. A. vitis tirely on aphides Of the different species of 
is most destructive to vines; as A. ulmi aphidivorous flies, which are numerous, 
is to the elm-tree. Plate I. Entomology, having mostly bodies variegated with trans- 
fix g_ verse stripes, their females may be seen ho- 
lt is found, that where the saccharine vering over plants infested with aphides, 
substance has dropped from aphides for a among which they deposit their eggs on the 
length of time, as from the aphis salicis in surface of the leaf. The larva, or maggot, 
particular, it gives to the surface of the produced from such eggs, feeds, as soon as 
bark, foliage, &c. that sooty kind of ap- hatched, on the younger kinds of aphis, and 
pearance which arises from the explosion as it increases in size, attacks and devours 
of gunpowder: it looks like, and is some- those which are larger. The larva of the 
times taken for, a kind of black mildew, hemerobius feeds also on the aphides, and 
In most seasons the natural enemies of the deposits its eggs on the leaves of such plants 
aphides are sufficient to keep them in as are beset with them. The earwig is like- 
check, and to prevent them from doing es- wise an enemy to them, especially such as 
sential injury to plants in the open air : but reside in the curled leaves of fruit-trees, 
there are times, once perhaps in four, five, and the purses formed by certain aphides 
or six years, in which they are multiplied on the poplars and other trees. To these 
to such an excess that the usual means of may be added the smaller soft-billed birds 
diminution fail in preventing them from that feed on insects. 
doin" irreparable injury to certain crops. APHORISM, a maxim or principle of a 
To prevent the calamities which would science; or a sentence which comprehends 
infallibly result from an accumulated ffiul- a great deal in a few words. The term issel- 
tiplication of the more prolific animals, it dom used but in medicine and law. We 
has been ordained by the Author of nature, say, the aphorisms of Hippocrates, the apho- 
that such should be diminished by serving risms of the civil law, political aphorisms, 
as food for others. On this principle, most &c. 
•animals of this kind have one or more na- APHRODITA, in natural history, a ge- 
tural enemies. The helpless aphis, which nus of worms, of the order Mollusca. Body 
is the scourge of the vegetable kingdom, creeping, oblong, covered with scales, and 
has to contend with many : of these, the furnished with numerous bristly fasciculate 
principal are, the coccinella ; the ichneu- feet on each side ; mouth terminal, cylin- 
mon aphidum, and the musca aphidevora. drincal, retractile; feelers two, setaceous, 
The greatest destroyer of the aphides is the annulate ; and four eyes. There are nine 
coccinella, or common lady-bird. During species. A. aculeata has an oval body, 
the winter this insect secures itself under brown, beneath flesh colour, with long silky 
the bark of trees and elsewhere. When the changeable hair on each side the body : it in 
spring expands the foliage of plants, the habits the European seas, is found in the 
female deposits its eggs on them in great belly of the cod-fish, and feeds on testaceous 
numbers, from w'hence, in a short time, animals ; is from four to seven inches long, 
proceeds the larva, a small grub, of a dark APHYLLANTHES, the blue Montpelier 
lead-colour spotted with orange. These pink, in botany, a genus of the Hexandiia 
may be observed in the summer season Monogynia class of plants, the calyx of 
running pretty briskly over all kinds of which is composed of a number of imbri- 
