THE LADY-BIRD. 3 



even in mid- winter often emerges from its hybernal retreat, as 

 if on purpose to remind us of more cheerful seasons, past and 

 to come. Perhaps, on account of its hardihood, an endow- 

 ment for which it is no doubt in some measure indebted to 

 its highly varnished covering, the Lady-bird has acquired 

 amongst our catholic neighbours the appellation of Vache d 

 Dieu and Bete de la Vierge, as though it were a creature 

 especially favoured by providential care. These names, how- 

 ever, are somewhat more applicable if the insect be regarded 

 as one of those little, but not unimportant agents, whereby 

 the kind Creator is accustomed to confer benefits ; and that 

 for such we are indebted to the Coccinella is a fact with 

 which every gardener, every one at least who knows how 

 to distinguish between friend and foe, is practically ac- 

 quainted. He sees his rose trees and honeysuckles and other 

 favourites of his care, laden with blight insects, (the Aphides, 

 or Plant-lice, whose history we need not now repeat), and on 

 finding their multitudes gradually thinned, he knows that he 

 is mainly indebted for their riddance to exterminating Lady- 

 birds, which, aided by two or three allies, confer on the hop- 

 grower a similar benefit. 



By entomologists the Lady-bird is regarded as a beautiful 

 example of his favourite order of Beetles (Coleoptera), and 

 when the pencil of nature furnishes him with a rare or newly 

 coloured variety, he looks upon it as a prize. It was the 

 striking prettiness of a black and yellow Lady-bird, added to 



