52, LADY-BIRD BEETLES. 
In maggot state these Scymni appeared perfectly voracious, and 
certainly did not confine themselves to Red Spider on the Hop leaves, 
for, on placing them on Plum leaves infested with Red Spider, they 
began to feed almost immediately, and continued at the work steadily. 
Failing other food they devoured each other, in one instance under my 
observation, until only one survivor remained, which went through its 
changes rapidly. On August 28th it was still in larval state, and 
after changing in the usual manner of the Lady-birds to a pupa (in 
this instance shiny and black), hung up by the tip of the tail, I 
found, on September 6th, the little Black Lady-bird walking actively 
about. 
From the good supply of specimens sent me, I was able to watch 
the development of this useful little creature from the larval to the 
beetle state, and gave the observations in detail in my Seventeenth 
Annual Report, as I am not aware of the history having been noted 
previously. 
The only method in which artificial measures appear reasonably 
practicable in gaining help from these various kinds of Lady-bird 
Beetles and their larve is by their appearance being so generally 
known that when they are observed in the vast numbers in which they 
come at times to aphis-infested field crops, they may not be purposely 
destroyed as field pests. I have been consulted about them, with the 
information accompanying that they were being hand-picked as de- 
structive, and, though there is no danger of this happening in the 
case of Hop fields, in other cases it may save harm to draw attention 
to their services being beneficial. 
As yet (so far as I am aware) we have not any examples of 
Coccinellid beetles being injurious in this country by feeding on 
leafage. But various species of Lady-birds of this family, of the 
genus Hpilachna, do notable mischief as vegetable feeders. Of these 
two species are recorded as injurious in the United States—one the 
F. borealis, the other the /. corrupta. Both of these are good-sized 
beetles (the borealis in the figure before me is well over a quarter of an 
inch in length), hemispherical (like our own Lady-birds) in shape, 
and yellow in colour with black spots. 
The larve are also yellow, of a long oval in shape, and with long 
and branched spines. The above characteristics make them perfectly 
distinguishable, both in beetle and grub state, from our own helpful 
Lady-birds. 
The EKpilachna corrupta is injurious to Beans, both to leaf and pod; 
but as it is especially reported as present in the west and south-west 
of the United States, it seems unlikely that this kind should trouble 
us here. The other species, the . borealis, is found in the more 
northerly and easterly States, and attacks the leafage of Cucumber, 
