Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-25
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

although much less spectacular, the ants
are all-SeaSon nuiSanceS. Spiders only
begin to appear in August and vanish
when cold weather comes on. but the
ants are at it all season long. Begin
ming their nefariouS work with the first
touch of Spring.
Perhaps the most dsagreeable effect
OF ants is on and in lawns. A dozen or
so ant hills. appearing here and there
in grass plot overnight. are guaran-
teed to spoil the appearance of any
lawn. Ihele are many remedies sug-
gested, but perhaps the average gar
dene'' is too lazy to try any of them.
The easiest is to kick the hill with the
foot thus making nice red smear in
the grass and getting mud on one s
shoes if this hostile demonstration is
made IN the early morning when the
grass is wet with dew.
The unsatisfactory part of it all is
that the next morning there the hills
Will be again. Ants are determined. No
sooner is their hill leveled than they
start to build it up again. Nothing
stops them except boiling water, and
unfortunately thai kills the grass. Ants
have a bad habit, too, of gathering in
great masses at certain points, from
which only liberal outpouring of hot
water will dislodge them. They are
said to assist certain garden operations,
such as the opening of the peony buds,
but we have always thought this to be
mere favorable propaganda. Perhaps
ants have their uses in q garden. They
do great deal of scavenger work, it is
true, and thus rid the place of factors
which might be inimical, but what they
cart away piecemeal is very small as a
whole, and perhaps would do no great
harm, anyway. The ant may be a
model of busy-ness, but it is somewhat
OF a nuisance in garden.
Ladybugs are among the welcome in
sects, it being stated that they eat
large quantities of plant lice, those de-
vouring, good-for-nothing critters.
We have watched ladybugs hope
fully, intent on seeing them devour
aphids, but never yet have seen them
eat so much as one. Therefore have
come to more or less doubt the anthem
ITCHY of the legend in their favor. They
are appealing bugs, however, with their
bright, hard coats and their nursery
rhyme associations. There is not much
sense to the sung, is there?
"Ladybug. ladybug, fly away home;
Your house is on fire and your
children will burn"
1t is poor piece of rhyming, to say
nothing of the fact that these insects
are not possessed of houses capable of
being devoured by incendiary holo-
causts. Yet perhaps the verse may in
culcate among the children of the hui
man species the dire results of care
less playing with Matches and if that
be so the crude poetical Offering may
have its place in world where many
rough rhymes have found ready well
come from the none too critical masses.
There are two other garden insects
OF interest, mostly on account of their
scarcity. One is what we call the pep
permint bug" since its coat is done in
alternate layers of green and bright
pink, In geonetrical stripes somewhat
resembling those once found on pepper
mint sticks, dear to the palate of child
hood This insect is seen mostly on
zinnia plants, and it would be rea-
sonable deduction that somehow it came
from Mexico. too
The other is the "phlox bug" or
Sunday bug" as it shows up in late
August on the phlox plants, almost
always being seen for the first time on
Sunday morniry. w, would not say
that this coincidence is a sure thing,
put we have notice 1t for the past four
years. Some nave told us that there
is no mystery about this bug; that 1t is
Just O sphinx head moth, but we pre-
fer to regard it as very queer. with its
coat of green feathers and red head.
from which rrotrude antennae. Our
phlox bug is the most friendly of gar
den creatures, and does not mind our
presence in the least. That is the sort
of bug we like