84 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST, 
The question of natural hybridism hag attracted a consider- 
able amount of attention from taxonomic botanists, whose 
work would be materially affected by such a contingency, 
and it behoves them to carefully note any evidence either 
for or against its acceptance. 
(To be Continued.) 
THE LIFE HISTORY OF LADYBIRDS. 
By Miss Mabel Brewster. 
On looking at a tree at our home one morning, I 
noticed it wag covered with aphis, so knew in a very short 
time the ladybird, Leis conformis, would appear, I 
watched, and was rewarded in a couple of days by two 
ladybirds appearing on one of the twigs. TI therefore put 
them into a box, and next morning found they had laid 
a uumber of tiny yellow eggs. So I put the ladybirds 
back again on the tree and watched the eggs. The eges 
were laid on February 5th, and on February 6th they 
hatched. The small larvae were quite black all over, but 
on changing the first skin, February 11th, had a yellow 
marking on seventh segment. Ags they are such hungry 
little mortals, I put into their box several twigs covered 
with aphis, and it was very fascinating to see the way they 
attacked the aphis. I put some aphis right close to them, 
but no, Mr. Larva would not look at them; he would much 
rather hunt and catch them himself. So off he started, and 
with his two front legs caught and held the aphis from 
behind, and began sucking the juice from it, then calmly 
pushed it aside and went after another, and so on. In 
a very short time they had all the aphis eaten, and T 
could not get more for them. 
The ladybirds out in the garden had worked so hard, 
the aphis there also met the same fate, so I had to resort 
to other means for food. last year I worked out life-his- 
tory of Leis conformis on orange and mandarin. I could 
not get these fruits, so tried peach and pear juice, which 
they took to very kindly. On February 14th they changed 
their second skin, and I noticed they were not quite so 
black, and had yellow markings on fourth and seventh seg- 
ment, also along side of body almost from head to tail. 
