500 
• Axxual Report op New York 
that, in most instances, it is impossible to identify their species trow 
preserved specimens. The middle ot September, I860, a letter from- 
the late Robert Howell, of Nichols, Tioga county, stated that in that 
vicinity many of the stalks of buckwheat were then covered with 
aphides, which were of different sizes, some of them baling wings. 
Among the specimens inclosed in this letter was one ot the winged 
lice, which closely coincides with dried specimens of the bean aphis. 
Yet its body, black when it came to hand, might have been green 
when it was alive. And it is only an inspection of living specimens 
that can assure us whether this buckwheat aphis really is identical 
. with the species now under consideration. 
In the order Papaveraceas, this aphis infests the opium poppy, as 
already noticed on a preceding page. 
To some of the plants of the order Chenopodiace.e it appears to be 
most strongly attached. Upon that common weed in our gardens 
and plowed fields, the pigweed, Chenopodium album, it has occurred 
to my notice very much oftener, than on any other plant. Duiing 
the latter part of the season a slight search anywhere will usually 
reveal some of these weeds infested with this aphis. The insects 
occur crowded compactly together and covering all the upper part of 
the stalks, and smaller clusters are located below, in and around the 
axils of the branches. Four different kinds of lice will be noticed in 
these clusters, namely, larvae or young lice, wingless females, pup® 
and winged females. One or two ants are quite constantly in attend¬ 
ance upon each flock. When frosty nights arrive, wingless females 
cease to be developed, and the colonies then come to be composed ot 
pupm and winged females, with very few young lice; and the ants 
then cease to be seen. The autumn rains diminish their numbers, 
but flocks continue to be noticed on some of the more sheltered plants 
till about the beginning of November, when the driving winds and 
storms of rain and sleet kill and wash them away. Wherever the 
orache potherb, Atriplex hortensis, is cultivated, it also is quite liable 
to be infested with these elfs. Mr. Curtis states that when this aphis 
became so immensely multiplied in July, 1847, the under side ot the 
leaves of the beet were literally covered and black with the winge 
females, sticking in closely packed phalanges, and in that position 
they died within a few days, without killing any of the plants. 
The order Crucifers furnishes another common weed in our 
gardens, namely, the shepherd’s purse Thlaspi ( Capsella ), Bursa- 
pastoris. Next to the pigweed, I have most frequently met with tins 
insect upon this plant ; and it is interesting to observe that it was on 
