Pests and Remedies 135 



single ancestor would produce a mass of organic 

 matter equal to the bulk of five hundred million 

 human beings ! All this bulk comes from plant 

 life and their taste goes strongly to that which 

 is cultivated rather than that which is wild. 

 Fortunately for us we have birds who devour 

 them by the thousands and little red lady-bugs 

 and their tiny violet-tinted cousins, whose 

 diet consists almost wholly of aphis, and who 

 are in turn eaten by the birds. 



Early in the spring an egg planted on a fruit 

 tree hatches out a little lady aphid without 

 wings. In a few days this first mother brings 

 forth living young, also females, and continues, 

 as long as she lives, to add two to eight females 

 daily — ^nearly all summer. There are no hus- 

 bands to boss or brothers to bother, and all these 

 females continue the same process without 

 hesitation. The third generation proceeds to 

 develop wings, and by common impulse flies 

 direct to the tender shoots of any especially 

 valuable plant. Again they produce wingless 

 female young as rapidly as their great-grand- 

 mother, and the tender shoots are quickly 

 covered with aphids who daily also produce 

 more. 



Possessing sharp beaks, which they force into 

 the tender stem, they spend their lives pumping 



