The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-05-18

celVeu pau reputation Tn some lOcdl- ity; but it does much more good than harm. It's anterior legs are so powerful
 that it holds an emmy in a relentless grasp until often the life is squeezed
 ont of it. Then it proceeds to devour it
 at leisure. A drawn fight between
 bee and mantis Is an interesting sight.
 As representative of directly the op- posite type from the mantis, the pretty
 lady-bird beetle is a unique insect. This
 beestle is beautifully spotted, and is so
 attractive that one will often stop and
 watch it's movements. It crawls over
 the plants in the garden in rapid evolu-
 tions, and eagerly devours the pestifer- ous plant-lice. The lice are probably
 the worst emmy that flower growers
 have to contend with, and it Is pleas
 ant surprise to many to find that the
 lady-bird beetle lives almost entirely
 upon them. Probably no insect of the
 garden can be counted upon as furn-
 ishing more valuable aid than the lady,
 bird beetle. It holds its own well with
 the praying -mantis, only it selects a different class of enemies for devour- ing.
 ~AACAAS tiAS AiiCo. we llctNG uuillSloUo friends that should be identified. The housewifes horror of flies should not
 lead her to the extreme of destroying
 every winged insect that looks like a
 common house-fly. The valuable tachina-fies greatly resemble the com
 mon house-tly both in form and color. They are, in fact, closely related to each other, but their missions in life | are very different. While the house. flies seem to have no object in life other than to sip the sweets from the table, and to annoy the slumbers of the inno- cent in warm weather, the tachina- l flies deliberately set themselves to | work to reduce the number of cut worms and caterpillars. They lay their eggs on the caterpillars, and then, as these eggs hatch out, the maggots eat | into their host and destrop life. As | parasites upon noxious insects their 1 mission in life is an important and use | full one. The robber-flies and the vel | low-banded syrphus-flies are also bene- | ficial, and they perform nearly as much | good as the common house-flies do harm. The syrphus-hies vie with the 1 lady-bird beetles in destroying plant | lice. The robber-flies attack larger and l fiercer insects and when confronted by
 honey-bee they do not hesitate to | lead in the attack. They are so large and fierce that most insects give them a birth birth.
 | The inchneumon-flies and the chal- cids are wasp-like insects that belong l to higher order than the flies just 1 mentioned, and they perform a great IL, e.. .I1.-
 when they have the opportunity. They
 are parasites, and perform their work l effectually by destroying the host l which gives them life. It Is commonly l said that they saved the wheat crop in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana in 1889,
 when threatened by the insects. l Among the bugs and beetles there
 are many which wage a relentless war fare upon insects, and in the aggregate they perform an illcalculable amount | of good work for the farmer and gard ener. We do not often give them credit I for it. Many of them are ugly and re- l pulsive-looking creatures, and the nat ural instinct is to grind them under | foot. But in so doing we may make it l possible for a thousand noxious insects l to prey upon our green vegetables and l flowers A little Knowledge and wis
 dom will teach us that all that is beau tiful in nature is not of benefit to the | human race, and all that is ugly is not l by any means injurious and destruc- I tive. The black long-legged ground- | beetles are about as repulsive-looking l creatures as one could find, but they are of great service in the garden.
 They destroy worms, slugs, and various
 smaller insects by the score, and in
 summer such a beetle is very instru-
 mental in holding the insect pests in check. Equally serviceable is the quick fierce tiger beetle, a creature so for
 midahle that even the huge spiders do
 not hasten to attack 1t. The rapidity with which the tiger-beestles conduct | operations makes their name very ap-
 propriate. Tiger-fashion, they spring upon their foe, and decide the battle before the enemy has had time to re- cover from the surprise.
 | The common ground-beetle devours
 cut-worms in great numbers, and the | soldier-bug and the wheel bug are not ed for their predaceous instincts. They l live upon whatever worms, slugs and I insects they can find in the garden, l Even our wasps are great insect-de- stroyers, and if we could overcome our
 natural prejudice against them we should find that they deserve to live. They will not sting one unless corner-
 ed or frightened In some way but they
 will destroy slugs and tent-caterpillars | by the dozen.
 Moreover, we have friends in the gar-
 den in the shape of toads and lizards. Toads are the greatest insect-destroy- CTS of all They lead all the other
 friends in this respect. In Paris, mark
 ct gardeners appreciate this fact better than American farmers, and toads are
 regular articles of trade A gardener
 will purchase them and put them insthe hot-beds to keep down the insects in
 the early spring and summer. In small gardens few common hop-toads will prove to be worth their weight in gold.
 They devour anything from the small
 green flies to the huge, fat cut-worms
 and the repulsive disgusting potato
 beetle. The small lizards are likewise good inseot-catchers, but they are more timid than the toads and less
 likely to remain in a garden. The
 snakes are good insect-destroyers, but
 their special fondness for toads makes
 it impossible for the two to live in the
 same garden, and of the two the toads
 are to be preferred for this work.-G. l.. | Walsh in NaW Vorlx pocf