*Tlie Goldfinch—one of the most 
beautiful of the smaller British 
birds—is also one of the most 
useful. The plants upon the seeds 
of which it feeds are those that 
are the most noxious to th 
cultivator. 
a couple of days 
later. Professor 
Huxley made an 
ingenious com¬ 
putation to show that the tenth 
generation from a single aphis, 
if all survived, would equal 
in weight five hundred millions 
of stout men, or one-tliird of 
the population of the globe, supposing 
that population to consist of stout men. 
So appalling a state of things is not 
likely to come to pass. Wind and rain 
kill quantities of aphides; various insects, 
such as ladybird and earwig, reduce their 
numbers ; but their most untiring and 
