My little aphid, how many wings have you when you have any?
Yes, little Nell, they have four of the daintiest, prettiest little
wings you ever saw.
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True enough, most of them have no wings at all.
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John thinks those must be young ones.
Sometimes they are, but not always. Many of the adult aphids have no
wings.
The aphids are very curious insects, and when you are older I hope you
will remember to study them carefully.
No, John, not all species of aphides make honey dew.
Some form instead a white, powdery substance that is seen scattered over
the body.
May says that must be the kind she has.
Let us see. Yes, May's aphids produce the white powder instead of honey
dew.
That is _their_ way of getting rid of the waste matter.
May says she is glad to know that; she thought her aphids had something
the matter with them. They seemed to be falling to pieces.
No, May, they are not falling to pieces; that powder can all be rubbed
off, and there are your aphids whole and sound beneath it.
Do you know that some species of your funny little tree hoppers secrete
honey dew also, and even have ants to attend them? See if you can find
some of these this summer.
Sometimes aphids live on the roots of plants as well as on the leaves.
Yes, indeed, May, they are very destructive insects. We have to spray
our house plants to get rid of them, and often our garden flowers as
well, and they do a great deal of damage to fruits and vegetables, and
one of them, the phylloxera, has nearly destroyed the vineyards of
France. It lives on the leaves of some species of grapes and on the
roots of others. We have to be very careful about getting grape vines
from Europe to plant in this country on account of the phylloxera.
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What have you found now, John? Ah, yes, an alder branch, with a white,
cottony substance on it. You have been poking into it with a little
stick, and you think there are insects beneath it.
What, May, you always thought that white stuff was a plant growth, like
mould?
We can easily find out. Get out some of the little things inside if you
can, John. It is not easy to separate them from their cottony covering
without crushing them, but now we can see quite well with the magnifying
glass--and yes--you see they are little insects.
We call them the woolly aphids.
They also secrete honey dew.
You say the ground below the alder bush was all sticky and black, John?
That was the honey dew, blackened by a little plant something like
mould, that grows on it.
We often see woolly plant lice in the summer-time on different plants,
and one species injures apple trees. It gets on the roots as well as on
the tender bark of young trees and kills them.
Yes, indeed, Mollie, the aphids are bugs. They belong to the bug order,
which is a very large and important insect family, and contains some
members that are exceedingly troublesome to us.