72 
ANIMAL ACTIVITIES. 
but from its back. In this respect it resembles many 
other insects. 
If we are looking at the female cricket we are struck 
with the length and size of the ovipositors, which con¬ 
sist of a pair of grooved appendages which fit together 
to form a long tube with a sharpened point. In the 
autumn the cricket bores a hole in the ground with 
these sharp points and deposits her eggs, where they 
remain through the winter. In the spring the warmth 
of the sun causes them to hatch and the little crickets 
appear. Here we have something very different from 
the hatching of tl^e milkweed-butterfly’s egg. No 
caterpillar appears here, but a tiny cricket, much like 
its mother, but lacking wings. These little crickets 
moult from time to time, at each moult growing more 
like their parents, until about midsummer, when they 
attain their full size. Before winter they die. 
The Aphis. Plant-lice are very familiar pests, 
whose ravages on the leaves of rose-bushes are well 
known. There are many kinds of these little destroyers 
inhabiting as many kinds of plants. They are called 
Aphides , any one insect being an Aphis. 
A single aphis with its beak stuck into the juicy part 
of a leaf, from which it never moves unless forced to 
do so, constantly filling its stomach with sap, seems, 
indeed, a mere glutton, but the whole brood of aphides 
when watched for a summer are a wonder-working 
community. The laboratory for the study of these 
strange creatures is ready-made everywhere. Wher¬ 
ever rose-leaves grow, a lens will reveal the happenings 
we are about to relate. 
In the month of October in temperate climates the 
wingless female deposits her eggs about the buds of 
rose-bushes, so that when these develop into leaves 
and branches in the coming spring the young aphis 
may have at hand a bountiful supply of rich food. 
Here the egg stays until the warm sun of March or 
April assists in the process of hatching. 
