LITTLE LADYBIRD
“CAN’T say with certainty,” replied Billy, “until I look in my note
book.”
“Well, it’s just inside the play house, isn’t it?” asked Mary Frances.
“I’m getting rather tired, Mary Frances,” said Billy.
“Oh, go get it, Billy,” Mary Frances begged, “please do, bring it out
to the garden bench—that’s a good fellow.”
“Well, if it were any other subject than gardening, you couldn’t
persuade me, young lady; but I guess I’ll go.”
“There are lots of beneficial insects named,” he said, coming out of
the play house, “but the one you know best is a different kind of a
bird from the feathered——”
“I know! I know!” eagerly interrupted Mary Frances, repeating the old
rhyme—
“‘Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home!
Your house is on fire, and your children will burn.’”
“Good!” exclaimed Billy. “Ladybird or ladybug; but why they are given
so charming a name, I can’t imagine.”
“I can imagine, Billy. Have you ever noticed, besides being so very
pretty, how neat they are; how ladylike they look when they fold their
wing covers and tuck in their inside wings; and did you ever see them
wash themselves? They do it so carefully! I don’t wonder at their being
named Ladybirds.”
“Humph, Mary Frances, you certainly have an enviable imagination. I
should say they were more fittingly named Possumbugs. Have you ever
noticed how they ‘play possum’ when you try to pick them up?”
“Indeed I have,” Mary Frances laughed at the remembrance. “Maybe they
do that to save their lives just as opossums do; but they are so very
pretty that I’d call them Ladybirds for that reason alone.”
“Not all are pretty alike,” commented Billy.
“Why, don’t they all wear shiny red dresses with black polka dots?”
asked Mary Frances.
“No,” smiled Billy, “some wear shiny black dresses with red or yellow
polka, dots; sometimes the dress is yellow with black spots.”
“Oh, isn’t that interesting!” cried Mary Frances. “I never tried the
rhyme on any but the red ones with black dots.”
“I never ‘tried’ the rhyme. How do they act?” asked Billy.
“Well,” laughed Mary Frances, “usually, if you blow your breath upon
them, they fly away; if you just watch them, they generally turn around
and run as fast as they can in the opposite direction from which they
were going.”
“Probably looking for food,” said Billy.
“Probably running to save their children’s lives.” Mary Frances was
quite indignant.
“Perhaps my notes will tell,” said Billy, opening his note book again
and beginning to read:
LADYBIRDS OR LADYBUGS
The Ladybird is a little beetle about a third of an
inch long. There are many species of ladybirds; they
all are of the same general shape, somewhat like a
split pea, but much smaller. They are usually of
brilliant shiny colors with spots of contrasting
colors: sometimes red with black spots; sometimes
black with red or yellow spots, sometimes yellow with
black spots. The young or larvæ of the ladybird are
not in the least like their mothers. They are little
black, rough, worm-like creatures with six legs, having
reddish-yellow or rusty spots on their backs. Both the
young and the parents are very helpful to the garden
because they eat harmful insects—scale insects and
aphids or green plant lice.
One species of ladybird which the California fruit
growers brought from Australia has been the means of
exterminating a scale insect very injurious to the
orange and lemon trees of the Western coast. The larva
of the ladybird turns into a hard encased pupa, and
later into a full-grown ladybird insect.
“My,” exclaimed Mary Frances, “another garden friend! Why, Billy, one
is never alone in the garden. There are always lots of friends about.”
“And enemies too,” said Billy. “Some time I’ll tell you about one of
the silliest of enemies, which Professor Weed called an ‘animated honey
drop’ or aphis.”
“Tell me now, Billy? Oh, do tell me now!”
“Not much! Not much! Some other time, Mary Frances. Do you think I’m an
animated encyclopedia—always ready to deal out information, or do you
think—? Oh, so long!”
Before Mary Frances could answer, Billy had disappeared.