THE LADT-BntB. 



31 



Look ! here, quite at his ease, on a rose-bud, is a little insect 



well known to children : it is shaped like a tortoise, and is 



about the size of a pea. Naturalists 



call it a " coccinella," and children 



know it as the lady-bird. It is now 



innocent enough ; but it has not always 



been so. Before it became possessed 



of its pretty form, and its polished 



shell of orange, yellow, black, or red, 



sprinkled with black or brown specks, 



it was a large, flat worm, with six feet, 



and of a dirty grey colour, marked 



with a few yellow spots. These worms, 



which issue from amber-coloured eggs, 



deposited by the female upon leaves, 



are no sooner bom than they set out 



in search of aphides. When they have 



found a branch covered with game, 



they establish themselves in the midst 



of it, and are in want of no food till 



the moment they feel they are about 



to be transformed; then they attach themselves to some 



solitary leaf, and wait, in abstinence, till they become veritable 



lady-birds. 



There would still be a superabundance of aphides if the 

 lady-birds were their only enemies. But do you not see, 

 hovering over one of the roses, a fly,* whose two wings move 

 so rapidly that it appears motionless? You would not care 

 to catch it, it so much resembles a bee, or rather a wasp. 

 Its body is striped with yellow and black, but instead of being 

 round like the two insects you dread, it is remarkably flat; 

 besides this, it has only two wings, and I do not believe 

 that any two-winged fly has a sting. It does not seem 

 to take any notice of the aphides which cover the branch 

 near to it. It is a parvenu. It has forgotten the humility 

 of its youth, when it had not its rich yellow and black vest- 

 ments, or, more particularly, its wings. It was formerly a 

 sort of shapeless worm, of a colour not at all striking, a dirty 

 green, with a yellow stripe the whole length of its body 



* Scisva pr/rastri. — Ed. 



THE LADT-GIRD. 



