THE LADY- BIRD. 



even in mid-winter often emerges from its hybernal retreat, as 

 if on purpose to remind us of more cheerful seasons, past and 

 to come. Perhaps, on account of its hardihood, an en- 

 dowment for which it is no doubt in some measure indebted 

 to its highly varnished covering, the Lady-bird has acquired 

 amongst our catholic neighbours the appellations of Vache a 

 Dieu and Bete de la Vierge, as though it were a creature 

 especially favoured by providential care. These names, 

 however, are somewhat more applicable if the insect be 

 regarded as one of those little, but not unimportant agents, 

 whereby the kind Creator is accustomed to confer benefits ; 

 and that for such we are indebted to the Coccinetta is a fact 

 with which every gardener, every one at least who knows 

 how to distinguish between friend and foe, is practically ac- 

 quainted. He sees his rose trees and honeysuckles and other 

 favourites of his care, laden with blight insects (the Aphides, 

 or Plant-lice, whose history we need not now repeat), and on 

 finding their multitudes gradually thinned, he knows that he 

 is mainly indebted for their riddance to exterminating Lady- 

 birds, which, aided by two or three allies, confer on the hop- 

 grower a similar benefit. 



By entomologists the Lady-bird is regarded as a beautiful 

 example of his favourite order of Beetles (Coleoptera) , and 

 when the pencil of nature furnishes him with a rare or newly 

 coloured variety, he looks upon it as a prize. It was the 

 striking prettiness of a black and yellow Lady-bird, added to 



VOL. II. B 



