THIRTEENTH REPORT 
ON THE NOXIOUS, BENEFICIAL AND OTHER INSECTS OF THE 
STATE OF NEW YORK. 
By Asa Fitch, M. D., Entomologist op the Society. 
[Copyright secured to the author.] 
Bean aphis, Aphis liumicis, Linn. (Ilomoptera. Aphidse.) 
Crowded together in clusters upon the top of the stalks and under side of the 
leaves of the English bean, the poppy, dahlia, and several other plants, a small black 
plant-louse with pale shanks, the pupae with a row of mealy white spots along each 
side of the hack. 
This aphis is one of the most pernicious insects of the group to 
which it pertains. So much notice has been attracted to it in England 
thalt in different sections it has there obtained the names of the black 
dolphin, the collier, and the black fly. It is liable to suddenly become 
excessively numerous, and when thus multiplied it falls upon plants 
other than those which it ordinarily infests, and plants which are 
widely dissimilar in their nature and not at all akin. And it is also 
liable to suddenly vanish and totally disappear. We are informed by 
Mr. Curtis (Farm Insects, p. 387) that, “ During the summer of 1S47 
the prodigious swarms of this aphis which suddenly covered the young 
shoots and under sides of the leaves of almost every plant, so that the 
surface was blackened by them, was unprecedented, as far as can be 
ascertained, and it excited the attention of the public generally. 
* * * They died in closely packed groups, with their beaks 
thrust into the leaves, and their wings erect; and possibly were either 
, poisoned by feeding on juices not adapted to their constitutions, or 
they might have been held fast by the drying of the leaves in which 
their rostrums were imbedded. * * None were observed the fol¬ 
lowing year.” He also states (p. 68) that in the year 1854 this aphis 
was excessively abundant, everywhere in England. In a communica¬ 
tion to the Gardener’s Chronicle, the last of August in that year (p. 
550), he reports that about the beginning of that month there were 
myriads of this species in the neighborhood ot London, and on the 
