The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1901-12-28
GA ER /. "A. b Y B JJGS.
For Shipment to South Africa TO Be
Used as Crop Savers. Il
Twanty Thousand Of tho insects
Being Hunted for by Children
OF West ockbridge, Mass, 81
for This purpose. a85

What will happen to the crops Of
New England il 10000 lady bug s are
taken from the Berks res 8 4 and
shipped to South Africa u &. 81. $I
Prof. Louns bury, the official esntp-
mologist Of South Africa, has ord cred
a supply to kill certain in q rious IN
sect which abounds near Cape Town.
G. Tobey, OF West Stockbridpe,
Mass, has engaged 100 children to fill
the order, reports the New York
World. The little reddotted beetles
are being scooped up in great numbers.
The Berkshire farmers are beginning
to protest. The lady bug is estimated
to be. worth any day ten times her
weight in gold. 1.
She comes of family which has a
good many black sheep in it, as black
sheep go in the insect world, but the
lady bug is a lady '1for a that"
OF all the myriad insects in the
world this little reddish beetle is the
most useful to man. Its value is be-
yond all price. It saves more crops
the universe over year after year than
any other agent. .s.
Z It's whole life is warfare against
other insects that destroy the farm
er's substance. ~. ii r.. - E. -.
French children long ago named
it bette bon Dieu (the insect of the
good Cody and in English we have the
gentle and affectionate rhyme:
Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home"
The lady bug is found in every coun-
try on the globe, although the species
those in other localities.
It has a round body only about one
eighth of an inch in diameter and is
&un:obtrusive both in looks and man
ner. Its long suit is it's appetite It
is always hungry. It feeds entirely
upon the eggs of other insects and
upon the insects themselves if they are
small enough. to be swallowed by q
specimen so diminutive as the lady bug
itself. ~.
The lady bug lays string of tiny
yellow eggs. She is cunning enough
always to lay these amid colony of
plant lice. AS soon as the larvae
hatch out, looking like miniature alli-
gators, they begin to eat, and being
carnivorous they fall upon the tiny
insects around them. In the five or
six weeks that they are growing up
they destroy whole plant-lice set
Element. Then they roll, up as
cocoons and hang suspended head
downward in nearly any available
nook. They came out of the she'll
full-grown lady bugs and keep on
their carnivorous career. -. vii,
Curiously enough, the lady bug It.
self has few enemies. It's only means
of defense is a pungent liquid which
is not poisonous, is not really of a
bad odor and probably frightens none
of it's haphazard foes. When it is
frightened it draws it's feet up close
under it's body and sticks tightly to
the under side of a leaf. Presently,
if nothing alarming happens, it
spreads it's small wings and flies
away, all the time watching sharply
out of it's brilliant black eyes.
The lady bug really has two pairs
of wings, although it seldom gets
credit for them. The front pair fold
over and form part of the hard she'll
that incases it's body. The hind
wings are used for short flights.
Nearly every insect which destroys
the crops is the prey Of the lady bug.
Many of these are the. lady bugs
cousins, such as blister beetles,
squash bugs, cabbage bugs, weevils,
bark-boring beetles, -four beetles,
beat beetles and cotton bugs, all of
which belong to the coleoptera order.
The lady bugs greatest service,
perhaps, is in the devouring of the
deadly aphis. These plant lice, little
green insects no bigger than tiny
pinhead, are the most prolific of in
scots. They infest all plants and are
particularly injurious to cotton crops.
Too small and frail to eat the leaves,
they suck out the juices. "
Z But the lady bug pounces upon the
plant lice. If it were not for this
warfare scarcely any small crop or
any flowers could be grown. 80 500
e In. :. California q few years ago a
particularlyElarge lady bug was in
troduced from Australia. 1t was
found to be the only agent which.
could cope with the aphis which
caused the cottony cushion scale on
grapes. In two years the work Of the
lady bug. Melted a profit Of 100000
to the state. It has now practically
exterminated his special scale insect.
{, >.#s. "A Coordination Tree.
There is a curious combina ton tree
in West Stockbridge, Mass IT. is tpri-
marily a maple Whic hmeasures, a foot
from - ornI1n 10 faot a inohoc