Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/213

 LICE

Recognizing, then, that evil, like everything else, is a matter of relativity and depends upon whose standpoint it is from which we take our view, it becomes only a par- donable bias in a writer if he views the subject from the standpoint of the heroes of his story. With this under- standing we may note a few of the "enemies" of the aphids. Everybody knows the "ladybirds," those little oral, hard-shelled beetles, usually of a dark red color with black spots on their rounded backs (Fig. Io B). The female ladybirds, or better, lady-beetles, lay their orange- colored eggs in small groups stuck usually to the under surfaces of leaves (Fig. 132 B) and in the neighborhood of aphids. When the eggs hatch, they give forth, not ornate insects resembling lady-beetles, but blackish little beasts with thick bodies and six short legs. The young creatures at once seek out the aphids, for aphids are their natural food, and begin ruthlessly feeding upon them. As the young lady-beetles mature, they grow even uglier in form, some of them becoming conspicu- ously spiny, but their bodies are variegated with areas of brilliant color- red, blue, and yellow--the pattern differ- ing according to the species. A common one is shown at A of Figure lO2. When one of these miniature monsters becomes full-grown, it ceases its depredations on the aphid flocks, enters a period of quietude, and fixes the rear end of its body to a leaf by exuding a glue from the extremity of its abdomen. Then it sheds its skin, which shrinks down over the body and forms a spiny mat ad- hering to the leaf and supporting the former occupant by only the tip of the body (Fig. 132 E). With the shedding of the skin, the insect has changed from a larva to a pupa, and after a short rime it will transform into a perfect lady-beetle like its father or mother. Another little villian, a remarkably good imitation of a small dragon (Fig. lO3), with long, curved, sicklelike jaws extending forward from the head, and a vicious rem-

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INSECTS