42 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



80 occasionally does the Spotted Ladybird which 

 has been figured above. The species to the left is 

 the Northern Ladybird, {Epilachna boreah's), and 



Colors, honey- Colors, yellowish Colors, black • 

 yellow aiitl black, with blackish and red. 



prickles. 



it is figured here because it is remarkable for being 

 the only known North American species which 

 feeds upon vegetable substances, being a bitter ene- 

 my to the squash-vine. (See Pr.\ctical Entomo- 

 LOUliST I, p 111.) The larva between the two fi- 

 gures, with some .slight variation, might be taken 

 for the larva of either of the above two species, 

 having numerous sprangliug prickles growing out 

 of it.s back, which, however, may be handled with 

 perfect impunity. 



There is still another genus of Ladybirds, (/iS?';!/m- 

 71MS,) which comprises insects that are much smaller 

 and of obscure brown colors, in some species with 

 the tail brick-red or yellowish. The larvfB ofthe.se 

 have numerous white evenly-shorn filaments grow- 

 ing from their backs, and I recently received some 

 from a Wisconsin Cranberry-grower, along with 

 the Cranberry Plant-louse, he supposing that both 

 insects were equally destructive to his vines. 

 Whereas, instead of being an enemy, the Scj/mnus 

 larva was experimentally proved by me to prey on 

 the plant-lice, and to be in all probability the only 

 efficient friend that he had toward keeping within 

 bounds his plant-feeding foe. (.'^ee the Practical 

 Entomologist, Vol. II, p. 8.) 



Dr. Fitch tells an amusing story of a very simi- 

 lar mistake, which was made by one of his neigh- 

 bors, whose rose-bushes were grievously infested by 

 Plant-lice. He complained, we are informed, to 

 the Doctor that, although he took the greatest pains 

 to go over the infested bushes every morning, and 

 desti'oy all the "old ones," yet that his bushes were 

 ten times as badly injured by plant-lice, as those 

 of his neighbors, who took no pains at all to war 

 upon the enemy. On examination it turned out, 

 that the worthy gentleman h.id occupied himself 

 every morning, in killing off all the l^adybird larvoa 

 that he could find, supposing that these were the 

 mothers of the plant-lice, and that he should thus 

 nip the evil in the bud. In other words he had 

 fired into the ranks of his best friends, and allowed 

 his enemies to march where they wonld, and in- 

 crease and multiply at discretion. 



It is only necessary to add, that the eggs of most 

 Ladybirds are small, yellow, elongate-oval bodies, 

 and that they are usually attached endways, in clus- 

 ters of a dozen or so, on the under side of the leaf of 

 the infested plant. The ])upaof these insects, as with 

 all other Beetles, is stationary and eats nothing, be- 

 ing generally suspended by the tail to some plant. 

 But in the genus C'hilororus the full-grown larva 

 fixes itself firmly, at full length, to a branch, and 

 the pupa state is assumed inside the prickly skin 

 of the larva. The same thing takes place in certain 



other Ladybirds, but in their case the larval skin 

 splits open along the back *o as to show the pupa 

 inside. 



The next group of Insects which make war upon 

 the Plant-lice is the Golden-eyed Flies, (^Vlirysujja 

 genus, ILmerobins family. Order Neuroptera,) of 

 which we have several dozen North American spe- 

 cies, differing by very minute characters, but all of 

 them slow-flying, green-bodied insects, with eyes of 

 burnished gold, and transparent wings veined with 

 grass-green. The left hand figure in the annexed 

 cut shows one of these insects, the two left wings 



being omitted from the drawing to save space. They 

 have the rcmartable habit of attaching their eggs 

 to the tip of long filaments spun by the body of the 

 females, so that a bunch of these eggs strongly re- 

 sembles certain mosses when they are gone to seed. 

 The right hand figure exhibits a few of their eggs 

 attached to a leaf, but I have sometimes noticed as 

 many as twenty in one group. The larva of the 

 Golden-eyed Flies (see the middle figui-e, which is 

 magnified fully two diameters) is shaped a good 

 deal like that of the Ladybirds, but is usually of a 

 sober brownish color, and may be readily distin- 

 guished from the other one by its very elongate 

 protruding jaws. Its habits are nearly the same as 

 those of the Ladybird larvre, and like them it is 

 fond of preying on the eggs of various insects. But 

 the pupa, instead of being suspended naked by the 

 tail or enclosed in the skin of the larva, is protect- 

 ed by a tough globular or short-oval silken cocoon, 

 with so smooth a surface that it might almost be 

 niistiiken for the seed of some plant. The cocoon, 

 in all the species known to me, i& remarkable for 

 being unusually small in comparison with the large 

 fly that comes out of it; so that, in Dr. Fitch's 

 graphic language, ''it seems like a full-grown hen 

 hatching from an ordinary-sized egg." 



Authors, copying from one another, have attri- 

 buted to all or almost all these Golden-eyed Flies 

 the peculiarity of giving out a very offensive smell, 

 when handled. I do not doubt that this may be 

 so in the case of particular European species, for 

 there is strong testimony to that effect. But it is 

 certainly not generally true of our North American 

 species. I have handled, mj'self, thousands of spe- 

 cimens belonging to dozens of different species, 

 and could never yet perceive that they gave out 

 any smell whatever, whether pleasant or unpleas- 

 ant. 



A third group of insects that prey most savagely 

 upon the Plant-lice, but only while it is itself in 

 the larva state, is composed of various species be- 

 Ipnging to the Si/rpliun family in the Order Dipte- 

 ra. In the perfect state the.se are all of them two- 

 winged flies, some of them of an obscure brown 

 color, and some beautifully banded like a "yellow- 



