ANNUAL WINTER MEETING AT WARRENSBURG. 273 



Another valuable group of beetles are the neat little Lady-bugs 

 or Lady-birds {CoccinelidiB)\ rather small, smooth, oval or hemispher- 

 ical beetles, of various colors, dotted or otherwise ornamented with 

 black or with a black ground, dotted with red or yellow. The beetles 

 are ol ten found on flowers, but the larvse are ferocious-looking, dark, 

 humpy grubs, whose favorite diet seems to be plant lice and scale in- 

 sects, of which they are among the chief natural enemy. 



We have our allies, too, in many common-looking and mal-odorous 

 bugs. These do not tear their prey, as do the beetles, with sharply- 

 toothed jaws, but impale it on a strong-jointed beak and extract the 

 vital juices by suction. Among these are three or four species, popu- 

 larly designated " soldier-bugs." They are distinguished from the veg-; 

 etable. feeders chiefly by a relative stoutness of beak. 



In the Order Hymenoptera the wasps kill great numbers of smooth 

 caterpillars and other soft larvc^ for food for their young. The large 

 solitary Sand wasps, or Digger wasps, store their cells with locusts or 

 cicadas, and one species even makes a specialty of the dreaded Taran- 

 tula of the South. 



Among the predatory insects in other Orders may be mentioned 

 the Preying Mantis or Devil's-horse {Mantis Carolina^ Linn.), which 

 is one of the few carnivorous Orthoptera' This large and uncanny- 

 looking insect, which sits with its spiny fore-legs folded and elevated 

 and moves its triangular head on the long prothorax with such wary 

 and watchful movement, is well known throughout all the Middle and 

 Southern States, where it is an object of interest and amusement to 

 boys and of terror to nervous women and girls. It is, however, pow- 

 erless to inflict a wound of any consequence in the human skin and is 

 not in the least poisonous. But on members of its own class it springs 

 with cannibalistic fury and in the course of its rather long life num- 

 bers its victims by thousands. For this reason it should never be 

 killed. 



Two or three tree crickets are the only other species in this Order 

 which I have observed to prey upon their kind. 



The Order of Lepidoptera^ in which are found the chief beauties 

 of the entomologist's cabinet, and which also includes a large propor- 

 tion of the most voracious pests of the field, orchard and garden, con- 

 tains a tew species whose larvji^ are partly or wholly predacious. These 

 are found mostly among the Tortricidce and TincidcB, and are not 

 especially noteworthy, save as exceptions to the rule. 



The Order Neuroptera has its Lace-wing flies. Dragon-flies, Hel- 

 gramites, etc , all greedy carnivorous species, but the Lace-wings alone 



H. R.— 18 



