THE APHIS, OR AMERICAN BLIGHT. [From the Leisure Hour.]

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 49, 19 June 1858, Page 4

THE APHIS, OR AMERICAN BLIGHT. [From the Leisure Hour.]

The destructive insect, called by gardeners " the American blight," but known by naturalists as. the aphis, must be familiar to every owner of a garden or an orchard. Were it not for its mortal enemy, the larva of the coccinella (lady-bird or lady-cow), its destructive ravages would be infinitely greater than they are. The aphides cluster round the tender shoots of fruit-trees, and, thick as sheep in a fold, are incapable of flight. Among them comes the coccinella like a wolf, and slaughters them by hundreds. But the most curious fact in connexion with these aphides is the relation existing between them and the ants. Goedaert, an old naturalist, affirms that these insects are the progeny of the ants, an error still prevalent among the lower classes. There is no doubt a warm attachment existing between the ants and aphides ; but, on the part of the former at least, it is of an interested character — a pure example of " cupboard love." The aphides secrete a sugared fluid, and it is this of which the ants are fond. The ant ascends the trees, says Linnseus, that it may milk its cows, the aphides; and its proceedings amongst its cattle, which may be easily watched by any attentive observer, have been thus graphically described :—: — "The aphides, when no ants attend them, waste the sweet fluid which they produce, and, by a certain jerk of the body, which takes place at regular intervals, they ejaculate it to a distance ; but when the ants are at hand, watching the moment when the aphides emit their fluid, they seize and suck it down immediately. This, however, is the least of their talents, for they absolutely possess the art of making them yield it at pleasure ; or, in other words, of milking them. On this occasion their antennae are their fingers; with these they pat the abdomen of the aphis on each side* alternately, moving them very briskly till a little drop of the honeyed fluid appears, which the ant immediately takes into its mouth and swallows. " But this is not the most singular part of the history. Ants make a property of these cows, for the possession of which they contend with great earnestness, and use every means to keep to themselves. Sometimes they seem to claim a right to the aphides that inhabit the branches of a tree or the stalks of a plant ; and if stranger-ants attempt to share their treasure with them, they endeavour to drivethem away, and may be seen running about in a great bustle, and exhibiting every symptom of inquietude and anger. Sometimes, to rescue them from their rivals, they take their aphides in their mouths ; they generally keep guard around them ; and when the branch is conveniently situated, have recourse to an expedient still more effectual to keep off interlopers. They inclose it in a tube of earth and other materials, and thus confine them in a kind of paddock near their nest, and sometimes communicating with it. One species common to our meadows, the yellow ant (formica fiava) which is not fond of roaming from home, and likes to have all its conveniences within reach, usually collects in its nest a large herd of a kind of aphis that derives its nutriment from the roots of grass and other plants {aphis radicum). These it transports from the neighbouring roots, probably by subterranean galleries excavated for the purpose, leading from the nest in all directions ; and thus, without going out, it has always at hand a copious supply of food." The aphides share the care and solicitude of the ants equally with their own offspring, the latter taking every care of their eggs, and tending them as assiduously in all respects as a farmer would his young lambs or his cattle. What a vast and inconceivable amount of living enjoyment is comprised in the insect world ! Of the number these minute creatures, the mind fails to grasp the most remote idea. has been proved by a celebrated naturalist, ..hat a single aobis in its short life may be the parent of a progeny more than fifty times as numerous as the whole number of the human inhabitants of the globe. There are other tribes of equal fecundity ; but this marvellous fruitfnlness is counterbalanced by swarms of deadly enemies, to whose ravages all in their turn have to submit, and by the sweeping gusts of auJumn and winter, which prostrate countless legions at a breath. On the 1 2th of December last, the number of subscribers to the New York Weekly Tribmne was stated by that jbajpal to be 200,000. ' Its charge for advertising is ** dollor per line, or 48. 2d. sterling.