342 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



so much, under the name of " the fly" among the young 

 turnip plants in our fields, where Haltica nemorum, 

 among others, is so busy in dry seasons, that it has 

 often been the cause of much loss to farmers, by 

 entirely destroying crop after crop. The claims of 

 Mniophila Muscorum to our notice are of a much 

 more innocent character. 



" The shapely limb, the lubricated joint, 

 Within the small dimensions of a point," 



are here proved to be no poetic fiction ; we have 

 shaken more than one specimen out of moss gathered 

 in the Westwood, and the largest of them did not 

 exceed the twentieth part of an inch in length. Crypto- 

 cephalus sericeus, a brilliant golden-green gem, we have 

 taken frequently among meadow grass ; Clythra quad- 

 ripunctata on hazel under oak in Padswood Copse ; 

 Timarcha tenebricosa (the bloody-nose beetle) in many 

 places on wild plants, particularly the different species 

 of galium ; and many beautiful 'species of Chrysomela, 

 among which we need only name the Chrysomela polita 

 we find inhabiting our hedges. 



Coccinella is the generic name of the very common 

 little Lady Bird, which in our days of innocence we 

 have so often heard affectionately enjoined, in the 

 language of a defunct poet, whose effusions have sur- 

 vived his name, to " fly away home ; " but why it 

 should have been stimulated to do so by the unfounded 

 statement that its "house" was "on fire," and its 

 " children at home," we have never been able to under- 

 stand. We have met with several species red, with 

 round black spots, yellow, with round white spots, and 

 glossy black with red blotches, and we know that they 

 are a most useful tribe of insects, passing the whole of 

 their growing stage in destroying the different species 

 of aphis that infest and injure so many of our plants. 

 Of the Endomychus coccinens we several years ago dis- 

 covered quite a colony under the bark of an old 



