52 
BRITISH APHIDES. 
conjecture, took an Aphis, wkick was born under bis 
own eyes, and brought it up without contact with any 
insect of its own kind. Reaumur said to Bonnet, 
“ If this insect should multiply, it must be without 
sexual union, or at any rate, if such a union had by 
possibility happened, it must have taken place within 
the body of its mother and previously to its own birth. 
The first experiments were made on le puceron du 
fusaird^ (Buonymus), a female of which, he tells us, he 
isolated so effectually that no opportunity could again 
occur for a second history of Acrisius and Danae. 
Bonnet then commenced a regular diary of the life of 
this insect. He noticed that four moultings, or shed- 
dings of its skin, occurred within eight days. Eleven 
days after birth il etoit accouche,” and to the young 
Aphis he gave the name la pucerone. Between the 1st 
day of June and the 21st no less than ninety- five 
young were born, after which, he says, le puceron 
pert son embonpoint,” and that then she took the form 
of the insect which Geoffrey regarded as the male. 
Here Bonnet warns observers against hastily con- 
cluding that an insect is of the male sex from the mere 
absence of internal embryos, an absence which might 
be simply explained by the completion of its efforts in 
viviparous reproduction. During one day’s absence 
from home his ‘^protegee” disappeared, for which he 
expresses much grief ; he concludes, however, from the 
collapsed condition of her body, that she could not have 
contained many more young ones 1 
Bonnet afterwards isolatq/i a female of the same 
kind, but of the second generation, with similar pre- 
cautions, from which ninety other young ones were 
born. He constructs for these insects a kind of 
genealogical table, for the purpose of registering their 
progeny and showing their relationship throughout 
future generations. In like manner he conducted 
experiments with puceron de sureaiC^ {Aphis sam- 
huci), which he found to multiply, through nineteen 
generations, without commerce with the male insect. 
