BUGS. 
41 
wings and can fly with considerable rapidity. One 
or two may usually be found flying about a dwarf 
palm or other plant which is infested with these 
insect pests. 
There is another species which excretes a pure 
white cottony substance. These are often seen on 
apple twigs in the late summer. 
Plant-lice, scale-insects, and all other bugs live 
on liquid food extracted from the plants or animals 
on which they live. 
It is easy to tell when a plant is infested with 
any of these parasites. The leaves turn yellow or 
brown in spots and finally drop off the plant. 
There are various “insecticides” which are de¬ 
signed to free plants of such vermin, but for small 
plants nothing is better than to wash the leaves 
with whale-oil soapsuds, and most plants can stand 
a bath of strong alcohol. 
