IIQ-2 



Rural School Leaflet 



LADY BEETLES 



Anna Botsford Comstock 



ERSONS who do not know about 

 the small brothers of the fields 

 have an idea that all insects 

 are injurious to our human in- 

 terests. This, however, is a very 

 unjust view; there are many insects 

 that spend their whole lives doing us 

 favors, even though we show no 

 gratitude. Some of these beneficial 

 insects belong to the family of lady- 

 birds, as these small beetles are called. 

 In fact, all except one or two members of this family are very friendly 

 indeed to the gardener, the fruit-grower, and the farmer; for, instead of 

 feeding on plants, they feed on the plant lice and the scale insects that 

 infest plants. 



The ladybirds, or ladybugs, are small beetles that look like pills of 

 various sizes cut in half with legs attached to the flat side. Some species 

 are brownish red with black spots ; some are black with reddish or yellowish 

 spots. Throughout the land, whenever a country child sees one of these 

 ladybird beetles, he addresses it thus: 



" Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home, 

 Your house is on fire, your children will burn." 



But ladybird is not at all frightened at this piece of news, because she 

 does not know where her children are, and I am afraid she would not 

 know one of them if she met it. She performed her last duty to her 

 family when she laid a cluster of yellow eggs on the underside of a leaf of 

 some plant infested with plant lice or scale insects; and from every one 

 of these eggs hatched a little creature that is very different in appearance 

 from its mother. It is a long, rather flat, velvety creature, covered with 

 warts and short spines, and black or brownish black in color ornamented 

 perhaps with some bright-colored spots. It moves around briskly on 

 six stiff little legs, one pair to each of the three segments of the body next 

 to the head. The first thing that this little creature does is to hunt for a 

 stupid plant louse or scale insect and promptly seize it with strong jaws and 

 chew it with great gusto, not leaving even a leg to tell the tale. A great 

 many of these insects must share a like fate before the larva ladybird 

 grows enough so that its skin is too tight for comfort. When this occurs 

 the old skin is .shed and a new skin takes its place, giving the greedy young- 

 ster plenty of room, so that it starts on a new crusade against the plant 



