Observations on Insects affecting the Turnip Crops. 57 



and pass the winter in the crevices of paling and trunks of trees, 

 under loose bark, in dry leaves, on the ground, &c., and are 

 therefore ready, on the shortest notice, to come from their hiding 

 places, from which they are allured even by the sunny days of 

 December ; and on the approach of spring are amongst our 

 first vernal visitors, when the female lays her little eggs beneath 

 leaves, close together, in clusters of about fifty : they are cylin- 

 drical, buff-coloured, and set on one end; from these, little 

 sprawling larvse soon issue, of a lead colour, gaily ornamented 

 with orange or scarlet spots, and are soon spread over the leaves 

 of trees, palings, grass in fields, indeed, everywhere in the vicinity 

 of the plant-lice, to which they are much more formidable than 

 their parents. Their method of attacking the Aphides is curious. 

 I have seen one of the latter struggling whilst this little insect 

 alligator threw his fore legs about it, and was greatly amused at 

 the skill it exhibited : for, fearing that the Aphis might escape, it 

 gradually slid along to the wings, which were closed, and imme- 

 diately began to bite them, so that in a very short time they were 

 rendered useless, being matted together : it then returned in 

 triumph to the side of its helpless victim, and seizing the thorax 

 firmly in its grasp, it ate into the side, coolly putting its hind leg 

 over those of the Aphis, whose convulsive throbs annoyed its re- 

 lentless enemy. These larvae are full grown in about a fortnight 

 or three weeks, when they are from a quarter to a third of an inch 

 long and upwards; they are then slate -coloured and yellow, with 

 numerous black spots and hairy tubercles down the back, inter- 

 mixed with a few scarlet spots (fig. 13*). They soon retire to a 



^-^ leaf or some secure spot, and, attaching themselves by the tail, 

 change to pupse (fig. 14) of a shining black colour, with a row 

 of orange spots down the back : thus they remain during another 



^fortnight or three weeks, when the inmate bursts through her cell, 

 and appears again a perfect lady-bird, t^ 



Attracted by the swarins"13f*'Aphides m the hop-gardens, they 

 sometimes congregate in myriads j and having regaled themselves 

 and deposited their eggs upon the plants, they wing their way in 

 large companies, often to perish on our shores in the autumn,* 

 or to disperse themselves over our turnip and corn fields, where we 

 often see their scarlet jackets sparkling upon the bright green 

 leaves. These beetles belong to the Order Coleoptera, and 

 to the Family Coccinellid^, and form the Genus Cocci- 

 NELLA of Linnaeus. There are two species which seem from their 

 numbers to be most beneficial to man. 



5. C. bipunctata, Linn. The two-spotted lady-bird is convex 



* In 1807, the shore at Brighton, and all the watering-places on the south 

 coast, was literally covered with them. Kirby and Spence's Int. to Ent., 

 vol. i. p. 258. 



