USES OF LADY-BIRDS. 9 



offence. This forbidding quality is supposed to be defensive, 

 serving as a protection against birds and other enemies. 

 Connected, probably, with the same endowment, and suggested 

 by it, were the curative uses, now obsolete, to which Lady -birds 

 were once applied. The common Two-spot variety ejects from 

 its joints, when touched, a yellow fluid of powerful though 

 not agreeable musky odour, to the supposed virtue of which 

 secretion has been attributed its employment as remedy for 

 tooth-ache ; and to the same cause it owes, doubtless, its place 

 in the Materia Medico, of old, as a cure for colic. 



Perhaps even these by -gone and problematic uses might be 

 proved by experiment not quite imaginary ; but the undoubted, 

 obvious, and important service performed for man by the 

 Lady -bird or Coccinella race, is that wherewith we commenced 

 this brief memorial of their merits, namely, their extensive 

 agency in keeping under the Aphides or Blight Insects so 

 inimical to vegetation. But for them, and some two or three 

 allies, not a lover of sweet posies could gather a rose unsullied 

 or a honey-suckle unde filed. Let us, for this, do all honour 

 to this red-coated race, preservers of our favourite flowers ; 

 but above all, let each lover of well-hopped liquors drink in 

 his glass of " October" destruction to " the Fly," and prosper- 

 ity to the Fly-destroying "house" and "children" of the 

 Lady-bird ! 



