STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
843 
APHIS. NINE-MARKED COCCINELLA. ITS LARVA. 
ends of the fifth and eighth segments. The neck or second seg¬ 
ment, which is large, flattened and roundish, is black in the mid¬ 
dle and has a broad border of the same red or yellow color, 
though sometimes of a paler shade, and usually in this border is 
an oval black spot on each side. Occasionally the whole neck is 
red or yellow, with four oval black spots placed side by side, the 
two middle ones being larger. The face and breast are dull pale 
yellow. Each ring"of the body has elevated black dots, six on 
the upper and six smaller ones on the under side, all of which 
are crowned with short slender prickles. These black prickly dots 
form rows lengthwise of the body, of which the two upper ones 
upon the back are the most conspicuous, and the two rings next 
to the neck have an oval black spot on each side of the middle, 
in which spots are included the upper prickly dot and the one 
next to it. 
It is wonderful how this larva succeeds in finding the particu¬ 
lar stalks of grain whose heads are infested with plant lice. Early 
in July, passing along the edge of an oat field, I noticed one of 
the heads which was thronged with lice, other heads here and 
there showing only two or three of them on some one of the pedi¬ 
cels. Two days afterwards, wanting to ascertain some point 
respecting these grain lice, I recollected this infected stalk which 
I had seen in the oat field, and went to pluck it and bring it into 
my study. But on reaching it, to my surprise, it was perfectly 
cleansed of these vermin, and had nothing on it now except one 
of these lady bird larvae, which was clinging to the stalk, in 
contented repose after the feast it had had. I was surprised that 
this little creature had the sagacity to discover and climb up this 
the only badly infested stalk along the edge of the field. 
I should suspect the honey dew, which plant lice eject so copi¬ 
ously that where they are very numerous it is falling in a tiny 
shower to the earth underneath them, might indicate to this 
larva as it is running about on the ground, where a colony of 
them existed. But this grain aphis does not appear to give out 
any honey dew; nor do ants attend it to feed thereon as they 
customarily do with other species. And it is probable that the 
only manner whereby this larva is able to discover where these 
plant lice occur, is to climb up one stalk of the grain after ano¬ 
ther, until it chances’to find one that is infested. This its move¬ 
ments indicate. The motions of the larva are the same with 
