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SPANISH TOWN. 
weeks before they were brought under my notice, 
that is, in February 1845, when a very remarkable 
white insect with a bristled bordering of fleshy 
tubercles on the abdominal rings, a mark of the larva 
of the Aphis-lion {Chrysops), made its appearance 
among them. The Aphis-lions devoured the Aphides, 
and covered themselves with the fragments of what 
they slaughtered. Whether the white efflorescence, 
which makes its appearance on the vegetation in- 
fested by the Aphis, and the little white spots like 
patches of hoar frost, which mark the presence of 
the Aphis-lion, be what in other islands they call 
the white blast, which was said to have been distress- 
ingly prevalent in 1844, 1 am not able to say, but it is 
extremely probable that this plague had been general 
throughout the West Indies that season. On ex- 
amining under the microscope the leaves infested 
with the Aphides, little pearl-like cases were seen, 
each containing an insect in its course of develop- 
ment. These cases were numerously spread about 
the foliage. Some of the cells were seen already 
perforated and empty. The Aphides were to be 
observed about in their active pupa state, some 
with their undeveloped wings glued to their sides, 
and with their bodies of a bulk somewhat exceeding 
that of the perfect insect ; the perfect fly had wide 
reticulated wings marked with an obscure patch in 
one section of the outer part of the main nervure, 
while both possessed the two short conical abdominal 
tubes from which the ants that visited them gathered 
supplies of honey-dew. 
‘‘ Some time ago the Agricultural Society of Gre- 
