FIELD BOOK OF INSECTS. 



Lady-bird, lady-bird! Fly away home. 

 Your house is on fire. 

 Your children do roam. 



Some of us add 



Except little Nan, who sits in a pan 

 Weaving gold laces 

 As fast as she can. 



And a few of us know what it is all about. Many Lady- 

 bird (Coccinellid) larvae live on aphids and this rhyme 

 started in the Old Country, where they burn the hop- 

 vines after the harvest. These vines are usually full of 

 aphids and Coccinellid children. A Nan who can not 

 roam but sits in a pan weaving gold laces is shown on 

 Plate LXXV. She is the yellow pupa. "Why ' Lady-bird ' 

 or 'Lady-beetle'?" That goes back still further: to the 

 Middle Ages when these insects were dedicated to the 

 Virgin and were the "Beetles of Our Lady." There are a 

 lot of superstitions about them. 



The most distinctive characters of the family are the 

 (apparently) 3-jointed tarsi and the broad, hatchet-shaped 

 terminal joint of the maxillary palpi. They have the 

 antennas n -jointed, terminating in a more or less distinct 

 3-jointed club; head deeply immersed in the thorax, 

 which is transverse, rather small, and strongly emarginate 

 in front; elytra convex, not truncate at tip. Plate LXXV 

 shows a number of common species, some of which are 

 rather variable with respect to color and markings. Smith 

 says that "in a very general way, and subject to many 

 exceptions," those which are red or yellow, with black 

 spots, feed on plant-lice (aphids), and those which are 

 W 7 holly black, or black with red or yellow spots, feed on 

 scale-insects. The larvas are often prettily marked with 

 black, blue, or orange, and are even more greedy feeders 

 on pests than are the adults. Some species have the 

 curious habit of congregating, as adults, in great masses 

 on mountain tops to spend the winter. Horticulturists 

 of California collect these masses "by the ton," put them 

 in cold storage until wanted, and distribute them among 

 the farmers at the proper season for controlling aphids. 



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