WHERE WE FOUND THE LADY-BIRDS.
(A TRUE INCIDENT.)
One spring we were cleaning away the leaves and ice from about the roots
of a little thicket of white Scotch roses, as we have always called the
low-growing, small-blossomed white rose so popular in many country
places.
The sunshine had not warmed the air enough to melt the snow and ice
which had been formed in early winter about the roots and which held
together a mass of oak leaves driven by the wind to this hiding-place or
else put there by the farmer in the fall. One lump of ice about the size
of a man’s fist had been very hard to dislodge from the rose bushes and
as it was brought out by the teeth of our iron rake we picked it up to
show to some interested bystanders and to our surprise, and theirs also,
we found a number of the small orange-colored beetles usually called
lady-birds closely imbedded in this icy prison.
Breaking off a part of the lump which held a half dozen or more of the
tiny beetles, we carried it into the house and allowing it to melt in
our hands we were surprised to find the lady-birds slowly begin to come
back to life and its pleasures. They seemed at first as stupid and
drowsy as any other mortals when just aroused from a heavy sleep, but in
an hour’s time they were flying about the room and finally all gathered
on the window where the sunshine was streaming in with greatest light
and warmth.
The children who had at first mourned over the supposed death of these
special insect pets of children were never tired of telling the story
afterward of how “the lady-birds could freeze to death all winter and
then wake up and fly in the springtime.”
Mary Catherine Judd.