INSECTS. 
69 
the plant and causes the leaf to curl up, turn yellew, and subsequently 
fall to the ground. The young lice are extremely minute, and of a 
greenish color ; but when they become older, they are about a tenth 
of an inch in length, and often dark green ; but, in some instances 
they are almost black. It is conjectured that the color somewhat 
depends upon the health of the plant as well as that of the insect, 01 
perhaps, upon their food, as I have seen green and black lice promis- 
cuously feeding upon the same plant. The female produces her young 
alive throughout the summer, when she may often be seen surrounded 
by her numerous progeny, sucking the juice from the leaves and still 
producing young. Some naturalists state that the females, late in the 
fall, produce eggs for the generation of the next spring. If so, it is 
in order to preserve the species, as the insects themselves are easily 
killed by frost and cold ; and their increase would be incalculable 
were it not that Nature has provided many enemies among the insect 
tribes to prevent their too rapid multiplication. Both males and 
females are said to possess wings at certain seasons ; but the females 
and young in summer appear to be wingless. The end of the abdo- 
men of both sexes is provided with two slender tubes, rising like horns 
from the back, from which often exudes the “honey-dew,” or sweet 
gummy substance, seen sticking to the upper sides of the leaves be- 
neath them, and which forms the favorite food of myriads of ants. 
Although young plants are mostly attacked, yet I have seen old 
“stands” in Georgia, with their young shoots, completely covered 
with this pest as late as November. 
The principal insects that destroy the aphides are the lady-bird, the 
lace-fly and the syrphus, all of which wage incessant war upon them, 
and devour all they can find. Another fly, the ichneumon, likewise 
lays an egg in the body of the louse, which, hatching into a grub, 
devours the inside of the still living insect until it eventually dies, 
clinging to the leaf even in death, and the fly makes its appearance 
from the old skin of the aphis. 
When old cotton-plants are suffering from the attacks of the louse, 
many planters cause their tops to be cut off and burned, and by so 
doing partially succeed in destroying them ; yet, when we consider 
that”by this method, many young blossoms and “forms” must like- 
wise’ be destroyed, it must be confessed that the remedy is almost as 
bad as the disease. In a garden or green-house, a solution of whale- 
oil soap, from a syringe, showered upon the upper and under parts of 
the foliage, has been used with much advantage ; yet, upon the ex- 
tended scale of a cotton plantation, such a remedy is altogether im- 
practicable, and, until we can collect further information upon this 
'ubject from intelligent planters, we must rest content with the in- 
ti net of our insect allies. 
i 
GRASSHOPPERS. 
( Locusta ?) 
Grasshoppers, or, more properly speaking, “ locusts,” occasionally 
do much damage to young cotton-plants, as they not only feed upon 
