PLANT LICE 



Recognizing, then, that evil, like everything else, is a 

 matter of relativity and depends upon whose standpoint 

 it is from which we take our view, it becomes only a par- 

 donable bias in a writer if he views the subject from the 

 standpoint of the heroes of his story. With this under- 

 standing we may note a few of the "enemies" of the 

 aphids. 



Everybody knows the "ladybirds," those little oval, 

 hard-shelled beetles, usually of a dark red color with 

 black spots on their rounded backs (Fig. 102 B). The 

 female ladybirds, or better, lady-beetles, lay their orange- 

 colored eggs in small groups stuck usually to the under 

 surfaces of leaves (Fig. 132 B) and in the neighborhood 

 of aphids. When the eggs hatch, they give forth, not 

 ornate insects resembling lady-beetles, but blackish little 

 beasts with thick bodies and six short legs. The young 

 creatures at once seek out the aphids, for aphids are 

 their natural food, and begin ruthlessly feeding upon 

 them. As the young lady-beetles mature, they grow 

 even uglier in form, some of them becoming conspicu- 

 ously spiny, but their bodies are variegated with areas of 

 brilliant color — red, blue, and yellow — the pattern differ- 

 ing according to the species. A common one is shown at 

 A of Figure 102. When one of these miniature monsters 

 becomes full-grown, it ceases its depredations on the 

 aphid flocks, enters a period of quietude, and fixes the 

 rear end of its body to a leaf by exuding a glue from the 

 extremity of its abdomen. Then it sheds its skin, which 

 shrinks down over the body and forms a spiny mat ad- 

 hering to the leaf and supporting the former occupant 

 by only the tip of the body (Fig. 132 E). With the 

 shedding of the skin, the insect has changed from a larva 

 to a pupa, and after a short time it will transform into a 

 perfect lady-beetle like its father or mother. 



Another little villian, a remarkably good imitation of a 

 small dragon (Fig. 103), with long, curved, sicklelike 

 jaws extending forward from the head, and a vicious tern- 



[175] 



