Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1875-09-03
GbeDermont 4Benit.
sRATTLEBoRo:
FRIDAY EVENING, SEPT. 8, 1876.


some parts of New England, we have seen
the foliage of fruit and other trees almost
completely destroyed by them, to the great
injury, If not the total ruin Of the fruit,
and we have been told that in other locali-
ties the orchards have a sere and yellow
look as though scorched by fire. Unroll a
bunch of the curled up leaves, and, If they
are not wholly dead and dry, you will find
the inner under sides of the leaves swarm
ing with lice.
They are Insignificant looking creatures,
yet they are among the most interesting
and most extraordinary of insects. The
injuries caused by them are enormous,
and their natural history is remarkable in
the highest degree. Their generic name
dphiS describes their character; it Is from
Greek word, signfying TO exhaust. In
their wingless state, their appearance is
familiar 10 every one who has ever had
anything 10 do with plants. Their bodies
are short, oval, soft, and are furnished at
the hinder end with two tubes for the pas
sage of sweet fluid secreted from the
stomach. Ut is this honey dew, as it is
called, which causes certain ants TO domes-
ticate them as we do cattle.) Their heads
three-jointed beak, by means Of which
they attach themselves to succulent leaves
and other parts of plants, and suck out
their juices. Their eyes are globular
their antenn@ long and tapering; their
legs slender and long; their feet two-joint-
cd. The males and females are winged,
and also the last brood of asexual individ-
uals but the early summer brood are
usually wingless.
The difference between the different
broods is perhaps their most striking char
acteristic, illustrating as it does that
anomalous system of generation, known as
pGrthenogenesiS, observed among few
species of insects and also in the jelly fish.
By Steenstrup tho phenomenon is called
alienation of generations" In ordinary
generation the offspring resembles the
parent; in this extraordinary mode there
is series or circle of individuals, with one
or more unlike forms always coming be-
tween like forms. Among plant lice, the
series begins in the fall by the pairing of
male and female individuals. The males
die; the females ALSO after laying their
eggs, which are Matched as soon as sap be-
sexless and, in the great majority of cases,
wingless. Though with undeveloped sex
ual organs, these individuals are capable
of reproducing their kind by a sort of bud
ding process. Contrary to the rule among
insects, their second generation Is vivipa-
rous: the young lice are brought forth
alive, and may be either winged or wing
less or both. The third generation resem-
bles the second, the fourth resembles the
third, and SO on, the number of successive
hroods of the sort having no certain limit,
but depending, so far as known, entirely
upon the temperature and the supply Of
food. According to Kyber, a colony of
dphts diantM continued to propagate for
four years, in warm room, without the
Intervention of males. On the setting in
of cold weather, however, or in some cases
on the failure of nourishment, the weather
being still warm, true males and females
are produced, the females always wingless,
the males sometimes with, sometimes
without, wings. 1t is by the pairing of
these perfectly sexed individuals that the
series begins.
The adv antage of this method of propa-
CATION is thought TO be the facility which
the summer broods afford for the rapid
multiplication of individuals. 1t is certain
that they are enormously prolific. In five
generations, according 10 the calculation of
Reaumur, the progeny of one Gphis will
amount to six thousand millions; and
Duval obtained eleven generations in sew
en- months, when the approach of cold
weather killed his specimens. Though in
dividually weak, their capacity for rapid
multiplication under favorable conditions
makes them formidable enemy to vege-
tation.
If it were not for certain other insects,
which prey upon the plant lice and keep
down their numbers they would soon
make agriculture impossible. Chief among
the lice eaters to whom we are so much in
debted are the larvae of the little spotted
lady bugs (coccinelld); and all children
should be taught to treat them gently,
when they say the nursery rhyme; Lady
bug lady bug fly away home.
In this connection we may observe that
children also sometimes enter the list of
lice enemies unwittingly, when they gath
er from young sumac bushes and other
succulent plants the juicy swellings which
they call "may apples" These hollow
warts are produced by the strings of plant
lice, and their interiors will usually be
found full of mealy substance thrown off
by the lice, mixed with multitudes of the
lice.
Reference has been made 10 the honey
like secretion of plant lice and the fond
ness of ants for it. One OF the first indica-
tons of the colonizing of plant by these
parasites is the double column of ants that
will be seen running up and down the
stem; those ascending lank and eager,
those descending full-bellied and lazy.
The lice remain on excellent terms with
the ants, and seem TO enjoy the caresses by
which the latter provoke the excretion of
the coveted honey. In return, The ants
busily drive away the insect enemies of the
lice, clear away their cast-of skins, and
sometimes build mud walls around or
earthern domes over the lice, to monopo-
lie or protect them. The ants have also
been seen to colonize the lice on the roots
ofplants, carefully fetching the larvae home
and planting them in littls herds, besiow-
ing upon them the same care and attention
that they show their own offspring, carry
ing them TO places of safety when they are
disturbed and when they migrate treat
ing them In short as we do our cattle, and
reaping similar reward, as the sweet fluid
so abundantly supplied by the lice forms
the chief nutriment of their keepers No
reports have been received of any society
for the prevention of cruelty, etc., among
the ants, probably because the formic cat