20 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
such are very generally despised on that account, much as 
we may admire their beautiful colors and motions. If we 
were able, we would destroy them all at once. But we 
forget that our trees, with all their beautiful foliage, are not 
more pleasing to us than the feathered warblers that build 
their nests on the branches, and gladden us with their happy 
songs. We should take from our groves and forests half 
their charm if we were to expel our Robins, Thrushes, 
Mocking-birds, Jays, Orioles, Tanagres, Finches, Black- 
birds, Cedar-birds, and many hundred others. And yet, 
were we to annihilate Caterpillars, our gardens, woods, and 
fields would soon be abandoned by the whole feathered tribe 
who feed on them, and melancholy sadness shroud the abodes 
of man. Ardently, then, would we long for the return of 
the noxious Caterpillars, and with them the joyous song- 
sters of the forest. In like manner, we ignorantly despise, 
and contrive means to destroy many birds who devour our 
vegetables, without considering that they rid us of a much 
greater evil in destroying millions of mice and noxious in- 
sects—so beautifully is the doctrine of compensation illus- 
trated throughout the Animal Kingdom, as weil as in all 
the objects of Nature. 
Now among the Beetles of prey, which feed on other liv- 
ing insects, I mention first the handsome Lapy-B1rD (Coc- 
cinella), which is quite small, of a discoid form, and for the 
most part yellow or red, with or without spots; but some 
species are black. They look like colored turtles, and are 
known to every child. But few persons know that these 
little creatures are of great service in the economy of Na- 
ture. They are found upon all those trees and shrubs 
which are infested with the plant-lice (Aphis) which are so 
injurious to peach, pear, apple, and plum trees, and others, 
as well as rose-bushes and other shrubs, and they make 
their principal food of these disgusting and destructive 
ereatures. . 
