GARDEN FOES AND GARDEN FRIENDS 
35 
Fortunately, such serious disasters do not happen every 
season, or a gardener would probably become a pessimist. 
Looked at from the point of view of science, there is for 
even these troubles some small compensation. They offer a 
wide field for biological study. Few animal types are more 
interesting than insects, or better worth children’s attention. 
The cycle of life through which these tiny creatures pass 
may be watched with keen interest. Children like to con- 
struct insect cages in which a whole life drama from egg to 
adult can be enacted. Naturally in these cages the normal 
condition will be imitated as nearly as possible ; and after- 
wards many variations in food, temperature, and light can be 
tried. They may study the cutworm too, contrasting it with 
our benefactor the earthworm, as well as aphids, or plant lice, 
the San Jose scale, and the tomato worm. To this list will 
probably be added other forms, such as the garden slug 
and the mosquito. 
Our enemies having been vanquished, in theory at least, 
and the question settled as to who’s who in the garden, let us 
now turn to a study which is just as profitable and infinitely 
more cheering. This consists in getting acquainted with 
animals which distinctly benefit the garden. There are some 
” beasties” which a garden really could not live without. Of 
course, a gardener will learn not only to recognize and protect 
these, but deliberately to cultivate them. 
There are insects whose very life work, so it would seem 
to a casual observer, consists in saving a farmer from pests. 
One of these, to which he might well take off his hat, is the 
ladybird, or lady beetle. This little creature’s food is chiefly 
plant lice. Any one who will watch it for a short quarter 
of an hour, industriously disposing of hundreds of aphids, is 
sure to become its ardent admirer. The lady beetle is never 
daunted. She lays her clusters of yellow eggs, bold as a lion, 
