CANE APHIS. 
457 
he least of two evils. To trash his canes under 
such circumstances would prove almost, if not entirely, 
destructive to his fields; he is, therefore, compelled 
to suffer the Borer to proceed unmolested, until rain 
has fallen, and the plant has again started into life. 
Then the removal of all the loose trash from the cane 
will check the progress of this insect, and by follow- 
ing up this operation as often as the canes require to 
be freed from superffuous trash the Borer ceases to 
effect further perceptible injury.’ 
“ Mr. Guilding speaks of an undetermined Aphis 
as one of the insects that infest the sugar cane. 
Some sugar canes which a friend had growing in his 
garden in Kingston, were observed early in No- 
vember 1844 to be infested with Aphides. They 
made their appearance in considerable swarms, and 
at once invaded both the leaves of the cane and 
those of the plantain {Musa). Beyond encumbering 
the foliage with substances that more or less ob- 
structed their healthy growth, they did not seem to 
do any injury by lacerating the leaf, nor did they 
appear to waste the plant by diminishing its ab- 
sorbent and excretory powers in any perceptible 
degree ; they, however, continued increasing and mul- 
tiplying without sexual intercourse, and were ob- 
served to be ceaselessly visited by the common small 
ants, which played around them, and touched them 
caressingly. These provident creatures were taking 
honey-dew from the abdominal ducts, those remark- 
able distinguishing appendages of Aphides. Nothing 
beside this good fellowship of the ants was observed 
in the colonies of our Aphis^ till within some few 
X 
