“You might think these two weevils enough to destroy this useful forage plant; but there are others still, some larger and some smaller, and all eager to get at the poor clover. It would almost seem as if insects had agreed to attack especially those plants that are useful to man. They set to work, by threes, by fours, by tens, and even by hundreds if need be, to carry out their ruinous [[330]]operations, some on the flowers, others on the roots, and still others on the leaves and stems of our most valuable plants. The grapevine has its caterpillars, beetles, and lice; wheat feeds destroyers still more numerous and varied, such as weevils, moths, white worms, gnats, and many others; and for the pear-tree alone we can count five hundred ravagers, perhaps more.”
“Do they want to starve us, then?” Jules again inquired.
“What shall I say? They go to work in a way to frighten one. You ask their motive. I will try to show you some other time; but now let us finish our talk on the enemies of clover.
“This one, here in my hand, is known by the learned as the clover-hylast. It is a tiny brown beetle with truncated wing sheaths like those of the bark-beetle, which it closely resembles. In fact it belongs to the same family. While the clover-weevil is busy destroying the blossoms, this creature stays in the ground and gnaws the roots of the plant.
“We have now the roots, the blossoms, and the young shoots devoured. Who will look after the leaves? ‘I,’ replies a little beetle with a rounded back and a flattened stomach, and called the globular lasia; ‘I will do it so that man shall not find anything to mow after we get through with the clover.’
“You are familiar with the ladybird or ladybug, that little red beetle with tiny black spots on its back, the good God’s insect. Never molest it when [[331]]you find it in the garden. It works for us, going from one plant to another, devouring lice, those pot-bellied creatures that in countless swarms infest the tender shoots of plants and suck the sap. The ladybird eats our enemies, plant-lice; it dotes on them. Do not disturb it.
Ladybirds
a, larva; b, pupa; c, first joint of larva, enlarged; d, beetle; below, from left to right, nine-spotted ladybird, trim ladybird, and spotted ladybird, with lines showing natural size.
“The insect known as the globular lasia is of the same family as the ladybird, and like the latter it is round and red and has black spots, but they are placed differently and usually number about a dozen on each wing sheath. The larva is yellow and all bristling with little hairs that stand up like tiny thorns. Both the larva and the mature insect live, not on lice, but on leaves, whether of clover, vetch, lucerne, or some other plant. The marks they make on the gnawed leaves look like furrows made by a four-toothed comb.