to catch their prey. It is very interesting, and you may see them 

 this summer if you watch carefully. This is the way they do it. The 

 larva digs a little well in the grassy sod just large enough to admit 

 its body, then it gets down into it so that its head is just below the 

 surface of the ground, and then waits — for what? For some unlucky 

 insect to come crawling along over its hiding place, when, like a 

 flash, up goes its head and its stout jaws are securely fastened into 

 the body of its victim and it is dragged down into the well and 

 devoured. 



I wonder how many of you know the "Lady bugs." I hope that 

 you all do, because they are among our very best friends. Some peo- 

 ple who have not studied about insects suppose these little beetles to 

 be injurioiis, but they are not. The next time you see some of these 

 little spotted fellows crawling over the fruit trees or rose bushes just 

 watch them closely and see what they are about. They will appear 

 to be looking for something, and pretty soon you will see one pick up 

 a green plant louse, suck its blood, toss the dry skin away, and then 

 look for another. This they keep up day after day all summer. 

 Thus they destroy an enormous number of plant lice, which, as you 

 Icnow, if left to themselves, would do a great deal of damage to the 

 young plants. The young lady bugs are even greater eaters than 

 the full-grown beetle. I wonder how much a wide-awake lady bug 

 can save in this way each day. I cannot tell you, but I know that 

 in a large market garden they may save many hundreds of dollars' 

 worth of vegetables each year. 



I wish now to speak to you for a moment of two families of the 

 Parasites. What are parasites, I hear you ask. They are plants or 

 animals that get their living by feeding upon some other plant or ani- 

 mal. For example, if your father keeps sheep, you have probably 

 seen the sheep ticks which get on the little lambs and worry them so 

 much. These are parasites, and your father will tell you how destruc- 

 tive they are to the lambs. But since these must be classed among our 

 enemies, we will not talk about them now. The friendly parasites of 

 which I wish to speak to you are two families of flies. They differ a 

 great deal in size; some of them are quite large, while others are very 

 small, but they all work in the same way, though in different insects. 

 Would you like to know how they work? 



If you will examine the oat plants carefully about the time they are 

 nicely headed you will probably find a large number of plant lice 

 busily sucking the juice out of the plants. It would not take them 

 long to destroy the whole oat crop. Now, if you will watch care- 

 fully you will probably notice a little black fly very actively engaged 



