Report of Entomologist. 
361 
feathers. They are intolerant of the light, and when the cavity in 
which they are inclosed is opened, exposing them to the glare of day, 
they slowly crawl into the cracks and crevices in the hall of earth, one 
after another, and in a short time all disappear. Here and there 
among a cluster of these lice is seen a little white, woolly, rough, oval 
mass. This is a dead louse covered with pruinose and other refuse 
matter. In the cavities among the lice also occur drops of a fluid 
resembling clear limpid water, globular, of different sizes, the surface 
of the globules dusted over with the same white pruinose powder, 
which keeps them from uniting together when they chance to come 
in contact; this fluid probably being the honey dew secreted by the 
lice. 
As these small underground lice are destitute of wings, they would 
be inferred to pertain to some of the Apterous tribes of insects. 
But, when they are closely examined, they are found to be so very 
similar to the plant lice, as to show the family Aphides to be their true 
place. In this family they constitute a distinct group or sub-family, 
to which M. Amyot has given the name Geophthiri , or earth-lice, 
(Annales Soc. Ent. de France, 2d Series, v. 485.) They differ from 
the plant lice in their underground residence, in their never acquiring 
wings, though it is of late stated that in rare instances some of them 
have been found with wings, in being destitute of honey-tubes, and in 
being always viviparous and never produced from eggs. They were 
formerly regarded as constituting a single species, which was named 
Aphis radicum. But, cn coming to be examined more closely, it is 
quite evident that they are of several species. A number of these 
species have been named and described, constituting several distinct 
genera. They are met with not only on the roots of different plants, 
but also in the ground beneath stones, and in the nests of ants. And 
ants are always found associated with them. The little brown or 
dusky ant, Formica nigra , Linn., common in gardens, occurs in the 
cavities containing these lettuce lice, and in the earth around them. 
And these earth-lice are nursed and guarded by the ants, the same as 
are the plant lice. Upon raising a stone and finding several of these 
white earth-lice under it, the collector, after securing one of them, on 
looking to obtain a second specimen, finds they have all disappeared, 
having been taken away by the ants into their holes in the ground. 
•And, as stated by Kirby and Spence, they are no doubt carried by 
the ants and distributed upon the roots of different plants. 
This species upon the roots of the lettuce appears to pertain to the 
genus lihizohius , of Burmeister, in which the antennae have but live 
