240 
H EM I r TER A. 
has ever come to my notice . 11 These little lice are attended 
by ants, which generally make their nests near the roots of 
the plants, so as to have their milch kine, as the plant-lice 
have been called, within their own habitations ; and in con- 
sequence of the combined operations of the lice and the 
ants, the plants wither and prematurely perish. 
When these subterranean lice are disturbed, the attendant 
ants are thrown into the greatest confusion and alarm ; they 
carefully take up the lice which have fallen from the roots, 
and convey them in their jaws into the deep recesses of 
their nests ; and here the lice still contrive to live upon 
the fragments of the roots left in the soil. 
It is stated * that the ants bestow the same care and 
attention, upon the root-lice as upon their own offspring, 
that they defend them from the attacks of other insects, 
and cany them about in their mouths to change their pas- 
ture ; and that they pay particular attention to the eggs of 
the lice, frequently moistening them with their tongues, and 
in fine weather brino-ino- them to the surface of the nest to 
o o 
give them the advantage of the sun. On the other hand, 
the sweet fluid supplied in abundance by these lice forms 
the chief nutriment both of the ants and their young, which 
is sufficient to account for their solicitude and care for their 
valuable herds. 
The peach-tree suffers very much from the attacks of 
plant-lice, which live under the leaves, causing them by 
their punctures to become thickened, to curl or form hol- 
lows beneath, and coiTesponding crispy and reddish swell- 
ings above, and finally to perish and drop off prematurely. 
Whether our insect is the same as the European Aphis of 
[ 11 It is very probable that the Aphis infesting China asters is the same with the 
radicis of Europe. Many foreign species of plant-lice have become naturalized in 
this country, and we may thus expect to find most, if not all, of the commoner 
European species infesting our vegetation. The Aphis ( Trama) radicis of Europe 
corresponds with our own in color, and, as supposed by Dr. Harris, winged speci 
mens have never been discovered. — Uiii.er ] 
* See Kirby and Spence's Introduction to Entomology, Vol. II. pp. 01, 92. 
