THE LIVING WORLD. 
245 
The Lady-Birds, or Lady-Bugs {Coccine Hides) , are brilliant in coloring, 
which may be black, red, yellow, white or spotted; they are too common to 
require description. 
The Five-jointed Beetle ( Cryptipentamera ) is a leaf eater. A highly 
colored species is not infrequently used as jewelry. 
The Potato Beetle ( Coptocyda clavata) is a "frequent pest. The crepidera 
ruin the tobacco leaf; there is a turnip bee tie , a cucumber beetle , a grape-vine 
beetle ,. as well as many others which manifest a preference for some vegetable 
or fruit valued by man. The Colorado beetle , or the potato-bug, was quick to 
exchange its previous diet for the 
potato, and has spread from the 
Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic 
coast. A natural traveller when 
opportunity offers, it has availed 
itself of the advantages of rapid 
transit as furnished by our rail¬ 
ways. It lays from five hundred 
eggs upwards, and these require 
but a week to hatch. The larvae 
mature within eighteen days, and 
then go under ground and are 
transformed into pupae; at the 
end of ten days the pupa devel¬ 
ops into the perfect beetle. These 
beetles have as many as four 
broods yearly, and as they hiber¬ 
nate, and as the larvae as well 
as the beetles feed upon plants, 
their destructiveness can easily 
be imagined ; at times their rav¬ 
ages have been such as to in¬ 
duce foreign nations to prohibit 
the importation of American po¬ 
tatoes. It has acquired new tastes 
in the absence of potatoes, will 
eat cabbage, thistles, and even 
oats. Within twenty-five years it 
has readjusted itself to every va¬ 
riety of climate ; has changed its 
diet, and has assumed great variety of form. Thus it strikingly illustrates the 
doctrine of adaptation to conditions, and Divine provision for the otherwise 
helpless, while the brevity of the time occupied in its development renders it 
a specially good subject for the modern naturalist. The common barn-yard 
chicken and the duck, as well as crows and frogs, render good service in 
taking the botato-bug where it shall no longer eat, but be eaten. 
CORN WEEVIL AND ITS RAVAGES. 
The Corn Weevil ( Calandria granaria) has no preference, but feeds with 
equal satisfaction upon corn, oats, wheat, barley, or rice; furthermore, it pre- 
pestle water-bug and larvae (Hydrophilus piceus). 29. 
lady-bug and larvae (Coccinella septempundata) 13. 
pine beetle (Buprestis Marianna ). 17. wool beetle 
(Lagria hirta). 15. brilliant beetle and larvae ( Meli - 
gethes brassicce). 34. horse-fly (Musca vomitoria). 40. 
horse louse fly (Hippobosca equina ). 16. bacon beetle 
(Dermestes lardarius). 36. ring-fly (Syrphus festivus). 
