Insect Study 413 



THE LADYBIRD 



Teacher's Story 



Ladybird, Ladybird, fly aivay home' 



Your house is on fire, your children are burning. 



HIS incantation we, as children, repeated to this 

 unhearing little beetle, probably because she is 

 and ever has been, the incarnation of energetic 

 indecision. She runs, as fast as her short legs can 

 carry her in one direction, as if her life depended on 

 getting there, then she turns about and goes with 

 quite as much vim in another direction. Thus, it 

 is no wonder the children think that when she 

 hears this news of her domestic disasters, she 

 wheels about and starts for home ; but she has not 

 any home now nor did she ever have a home, and she does not carry even a 

 trunk. Perhaps it would be truer to say that she has a home everywhere, 

 whether she is cuddled under a leaf for a night's lodging or industriously 

 climbing out on twigs, only to scramble back again, or perchance to take 

 flight from their tips. 



There are many species of ladybirds, but in general they all resemble 

 a tiny pill cut in half, with legs attached to the flat side. Sometimes it 

 may be a round and sometimes an oval pill, but it is always shining and 

 the colors are always dull dark red, or yellow, or whit- 

 ish, and black. Sometimes she is black with red or 

 yellow spots, sometimes red or yellow with black spots 

 and the spots are usually on either side of the thorax 

 and one on each snug little wing-cover. But if we Ladybird larva. 

 look at the ladybird carefully we can see the head and the short, clublike 

 antennae. Behind the head is the thorax with its shield, broadening 

 toward the rear, spotted and ornamented in various ways ; the head and 

 thorax together occupy scarcely a fourth of the length of the insect, and 

 the remainder consists of the hemispherical body, encased with polished 

 wing-covers. The little black legs, while quite efficient because they can 

 be moved so rapidly, are not the ladybird's only means of locomotion; 

 she is a good flier and has a long pair of dark wings which she folds cross- 

 wise under her wing-covers. It is comical to see her pull up her wings, as 

 a lady tucks up a long petticoat; and sometimes ladybird is rather 

 slovenly about it and runs around with the tips of her wings hanging out 

 behind, quite untidily. 



But any untidiness must be inadvertent, because the ladybird takes 

 very good care of herself and spends much time in "washing up." She 

 begins with her front legs, cleaning them with her mandibles, industriously 

 nibbling off every grain of dust ; she then cleans her middle and hind legs 

 by rubbing the tw r o on the same side, back and forth against each other, 

 each acting as a whisk broom for the other; she cleans her wings by 

 brushing them between the edges of the wing-cover above and the tarsus 

 of her hind leg below. 



The ladybird is a clever little creature, even if it does look like a pill, 

 and if you disturb it, it will fold up its legs and drop as if dead, playing 

 possum in a most deceptive manner. It will remain in this attitude of 



