LADY-BIRD TRANSFORMATIONS. 5 



surface of the first leaf falling in her way. The cubs of a 

 lioness or a wolf deserted on a smooth green island, whereon 

 was no one living creature save themselves, would find their 

 wants about as well provided for, as would be those of an 

 infant brood of Lady-birds on an uninhabited leaf. In other 

 words, exactly what browsing flocks and herds of deer are to 

 the quadruped of prey, the tribes of Aphides are to the Lady- 

 bird. Carnivorous herself, she takes care that her children, 

 when the sun wakes them into life with similar but yet more 

 devouring propensities than her own, shall have abundance of 

 living food for their exercise conveniently at hand ; and for 

 this purpose she fails not to select as their nursery a leaf, most 

 frequently of rose-bush, hop, or honeysuckle, but of what sort 

 soever, one sure to be peopled by, or closely contiguous to, the 

 insect live-stock so essential to their support. 



It is in this its earliest stage of grub or larva the most 

 voracious if not the most active of its life that the Coccinetta 

 plays its most important part in the reduction of the Aphis 

 million, both in gardens and hop grounds, where the latter is 

 popularly known as "the My." As an instance, among 

 thousands, of that beneficent care which never fails to provide 

 an antidote against every evil, natural as well as moral, it has 

 been observed that a relative proportion is in most seasons 

 observable between the number of plant-destroying Aphides, 

 and that of Aphis-eating Lady-birds. Kirby mentions that in 

 1817 the shore of Brighton was covered with swarms of the 



B 2 



