414 Handbook of Nature-Study 



rigid death for at least a minute or two and then will begin to claw the air 

 with all its six legs in an effort to turn right side up. 



From our standpoint the ladybird is of great value, for during xhe 

 larval as well as adult stages, all species except one, feed upon those 

 insects which we are glad to be rid of. They are especially fond of aphids 

 and scale insects. One of the greatest achievements of economic entomol- 

 ogy was the introduction on the Pacific Coast of the ladybird from 

 Austraha, called the Vedalia, which preys upon the cottony cushion 

 scale insect, a species very dangerous to orange and lemon trees. Within 

 a few years the introduced ladybirds had completely exterminated this 

 pest. 



The ladybird's history is as follows : The mother beetle, in the spring, 



lays her eggs here and there on plants: as soon as the larva hatches, it 



starts out to hunt for aphids and other insects. It is safe to say that no 



ladybird would recognize her own children in time to save 



them, even if the house were burning, for they do not in the 



t least resemble her; they are neither roly-poly nor shiny, but 

 are long and segmented and velvety, with six queer, short legs 

 that look and act as if they were whittled out of wood ; they 

 seem only efficient for clinging around a stem The larvae are 

 Ladvbird usually black, spotted with orange or yellow; there are six 

 pupa. warts on each segment, which make the creature's back look 

 quite rough. The absorbing business of the larva is to crawl 

 around on plants and chew up the foolish aphids or the scale 

 insects. I have seen one use its front foot to push an aphid, which it was 

 eating, closer to its jaws; but when one green leg of its victim still clung 

 to its head, it did not try to rub it off as its mother would have done, but 

 twisted its head over this way and that, wiping off the fragment on a plant 

 stem and then gobbling it up. 



After the larva has shed its skeleton skin several times, and destroyed 

 many times its own bulk of insects, it hunts for some quiet corner, hangs 

 itself up by the tail and condenses itself into a sub-globular form ; 

 it sheds its spiny skin pushing it up around the point of attach- ^ 

 ment, and there lets it stay like the lion's skin of Hercules. As a 

 pupa, it is more nearly rectangular than round, and if we look 

 closely, we can see the wing-cases, the spotted segments of the^^'^^y}!^'''^ 

 abdomen, and the eyes, all encased in the pupa skin; the latter ..^^^g, ' 

 bursts open after a few days and the shining, little half-globe nine- 

 emerges a full-grown ladybird, ready for hiding in some cozy spot spotted 

 to pass the winter, from which she will emerge in the spring, to f^'^-^'r, 

 stock our trees and vines, next year, with her busy little progeny. ^^' 



References — ^American Insects, Kellogg; Manual for the Study of 

 Insects, Comstock, 



LESSON XCIII 

 The Ladybird 



Leading thought — ^The ladybird is a beetle. Its young are very differ- 

 ent from the adult in appearance, and feed upon plant-hce. 



Method — ^These little beetles are very common in autumn and may be 

 brought to the schoolroom and passed around in vials for the children to 

 observe. Their larvae may be found on almost any plant infested with 



