COCCINELLID^ LADY-BIRDS. 21 



Or, as in Yorlrshire and Lancashire, — 



Lady-bird, lady-bird, eigli thy way home; 

 Thy house is on fire, thy children all roam, 

 Except little Nan, who sits in her pan, 

 Weaving gold laces as fast as she can.i 



Or, as most commonly with us in America, — 



Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home, 



Your house is on fire, and your children all burn. 



The meaning of this familiar, though very curious couplet, 

 seems to be this : the larvae, or young, of the Lady-bird 

 feed principally upon the aphides, or plant-lice, of the vines 

 of the hop ; and fire is the usual means employed in destroy- 

 ing the aphides ; so that in killing the latter, the former, 

 which had come for the same purpose, are likewise destroyed. 



Lnmense swarms of Lady-birds are sometimes observed 

 in England, especially on the southeastern coast. They 

 have been described as extending in dense masses for miles, 

 and consisting of several species intermixed.^ In 1807, 

 these flights in Kent and Sussex caused no small alarm to 

 the superstitious, who thought them the forerunners of some 

 direful evil. They were, however, but emigrants from the 

 neighboring hop-grounds, where, in their larva state, they 

 had been feasting upon the aphides.^ 



The Lady-bird was formerly considered an efficacious 

 remedy for the cohc and measles;* and it has been recom- 

 mended often as a cure for the toothache : being said, when 

 one or two are mashed and put into the hollow tooth, to 

 immediately relieve the pain. Jaeger says he has tried 

 this application in two instances with success.^ 



In the northern part of South America — the Spanish 

 Main — a species of Lady-bug, Captain Stuart tells me, is 

 extensively worn as jewels and ornaments. He may, how- 

 ever, refer to some species of the Gold-beetles — Chryso- 

 melidde, next mentioned. 



Hurdis, who has frequently, in his Poems, availed him- 

 self of the modern discoveries in Natural History, has 



1 Notes and Queries, iv. 53. 



2 Baird's Cyclop, of Nat. Sci. 



3 Kirby and Spence, Introd., ii. 9. 

 * Newell's Zool. of the Poets, p. 48. 

 ^ Life of Amer. Ins., p. 21. 



3* 



