VOL. VI. LONDON, ONT., MAY, 1874. No. 5 



ON SOME OF OUR COMMON INSFXTS. 

 IS.— THE COCCINELLID^. 



BY R. V. ROGERS, KINGSTON. 



" Of all the painted populace that live in f elds and live ambrosial 

 lives," there is scarcely a family better known than those which compose 

 the last of all the tribes of Hard-shells, the Coccinellidee. To the young 

 and to the old, to the illiterate and to the scientist, they are equally 

 familiar and equally interesting. Popular sympathy is extended towards 

 them by the elders because they do much good in preventing the excessive 

 multiplication of Aphides ; by the juveniles beciiuse they are very pretty 

 little things and tamely pitter-patter to and fro, and their supposed mis- 

 fortunes affect deeply sensitive little hearts, while infantile accents lisp 

 *' Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home ; your house is on fire, your children 

 are burned." They are distinguishable chiefly by the colors of and the 

 spots upon their wing covers ; the different species are sometimes difticult 

 to discriminate : they number upwards of one thousand, and more than 

 thirty species are known to inhabit Canada. 



The general colors of the Coccineliidee are yellow, red or orange, with 

 black spots, and black with red, white or yellow spots, the spots being 

 either lunate or round. Their shape is hemispherical, and although of 

 variable size, an average specimen " bears a considerable resemblance 

 in size and figure to an ordinary split pea ; they have but very short legs 

 and therefore creep but slowly ; their powers of flight, however, are 

 considerable." When alarmed or laid hold of, they fold up their tiny 

 limbs and eject from the joints a yellow, mucilaginous fluid, which has a 

 somewhat strong and disagreeable odor. This fluid entitles the pretty 

 Lady-birds to be ranked among the matci'ia vicdica, and to be assigned a 

 place in the Phamacopceia, for it is a superior, cheap and never-failing 



