HONEYDEW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20288, 22 June 1929, Page 4 (Supplement)

HONEYDEW.

By EDITH EC~ES. Hidden in the joint where a leaf sprang from a soft green stem, Olive-brown had hatched from the smallest of eggs into the smallest of aphids. She bad no wings, but she had six fine little legs, and under her olive-brown body a long suck-ing-tube was bent. She crept on to the leaf and lived there, sucking up its juices, and growing fast. So fast she grew that at the end of a month she was not only full-sized, she also had a family round her—four olivegreen babies, perfect images of their mother.

They all lived together in a little oval house, smooth-walled and green; for where she had settled and sucked the leaf swelled and swelled until at last its irritated tissues met in a rounded roof over her head, forming gall. As she ate and grew, her house grew with her. Very convenient, that was! And convenient, too, to have the floor and walls made of food! There was no need to wander. All one had to do was to sit still and suck, putting out now and then a tiny ball of honeydew made from the juices of the leaf. The family was extremely comfortable, shut in there safe from the prowling world. But there came a. night when the floor had been sucked so dry that it cracked and split. Th? split crew wider. Globes of honeydew rolled out, to drop upon tlie lower leaves and stems and glisten in the moonlight. The young ones clung to the walls; but the mother said: " The time has come for you to go out into the world. You must each choose a fresh leaf on which to mako your home. Run fast when you go, and slip under the leaves and stems, for there are enemies about." " Who are the enemies?" they asked. " There are many, but the three worst are ladybirds, lions, and stabbers. Ladybirds are little beetles, red and spotted; lions are flat-bodied grubs that will turn into green and golden lacewing flies when they have eaten their fill of us; stabbers are gaily coloured flies, delicate, finebodied, transparent-winged. They are the most beautiful of all, but the most terrible, for, insteaa of killing and eating you at once as the others do, they Etab you and lay their eggs in you. The eggs hatch and suck your blood, and you die slowly while they grow fat." The young ones shivered. " Horrible!" they cried. " Must we go out into a world where such things are?" "You would starve here, you and the families you will have. You must go forth, each to your own leaf. But run fast and secretly, and you will be safe. I have warned you of your enemies, but yon will find friends, too, who will love you for your honeydew. Wasps, coming to feed upon it, will frighten away those who would harm you; ants—" Crack! The floor split again, and the openjng widened. One of the younglings pushed her head through and peered about, " I shall go to the next leaf," she said. "It is not far to run." "You will have to go further," said Olive-brown, the mother, " for Greenie the Caterpillar has taken that one. He lives in it." (To he continued.)