The New International Encyclopædia/Ladybird

LADYBIRD (lady, with reference to Our Lady, the Virgin Mary + bird, perhaps a variant of bug), or Ladybug. A beetle of the family Coccinellidæ. Ladybirds are pretty little beetles, well known to every one, often of a brilliant red or yellow color, with black, red, white, or yellow spots, the number and distribution of which are characteristic of the different species. The form is nearly hemispherical, the under surface being very flat, the thorax and head small; the antennæ are short, and terminate in a triangular club; the legs are short. When handled, these insects emit from their joints a yellowish fluid, having a disagreeable smell. They and their larvæ feed chiefly on scale-insects and plant-lice, in devouring which they are very useful to agriculturists and fruit-growers. They deposit their eggs under the leaves of plants, on which the larvæ are to find their food, and the larvæ run about in pursuit of aphids. Ladybirds are sometimes to be seen in immense numbers, which, from ignorance of their usefulness, have sometimes been regarded with a kind of superstitious dread.

Ladybirds are great benefactors to the American fruit-growers. An Australian ladybird (Vedalia, or Novius, cardinalis) was introduced in 1886, to feed on the cottony cushion-scale of the orange and lemon groves of California, and in less than a year it practically exterminated the pest. It has since been introduced with equal success into South Africa, Portugal, Egypt, and Italy, where it has exterminated the same scale or a congeneric species. The two-spotted ladybird (Coccinella bipunctata), a black beetle with two red spots, which occurs all over the United States, is also of inestimable value in protecting vegetation from plant-lice and scale and other insects. One genus of ladybirds (Epilachna) is herbivorous, and feeds on the leaves of the squash, pumpkin, melon, bean, and other plants. See Colored Plate of Insects.