ly hides in rubbish about the base of trees or in
some cases even enter homes for the winter months, coming out with the
spring to deposit small masses of oval yellow or orange eggs on plants
infested with lice. They breed rapidly and with the help of parasites
and other beneficial insects usually control the plant-lice pests.

OBSERVATIONS AND STUDIES

Examine about fruit trees, shade trees, truck crops and in wheat fields
for the brightly marked beetles. Watch them move about the plant in
search of food. Can they fly? Do you find them eating the leaves? Do you
find any green lice near them? See if they feed on these lice. Examine
also for the soft bodied, tiger-like grubs. Do they eat the lice? Do
they travel fast? Have they wings? See if you can find any of the pupae
attached to limbs or twigs and if so, tickle them with a straw or a
pencil and see them "bow." Keep a record of the different trees and
plants on which you find lady-beetles.

Collect several of the beetles and the grubs and keep them in a bottle
or jelly glass. Leave them without food for a day and then give them
some green plant-lice and watch them devour the lice. How many lice can
one eat in a day? How do they go about devouring a louse? Do they simply
suck out the blood, or is the louse completely devoured? Supposing that
for each apple tree in Missouri there are one hundred lady-beetles and
that each beetle devours fifteen lice in a day, does it not seem worth
while protecting them and encouraging such work? A little time spent in
acquainting one's self with the good work of such forms as these will
help greatly in the fight on our insect foes. Make drawings of and
describe briefly the different stages of the lady-beetles.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DRAGON-FLY

What child is there that is not familiar with the insect commonly known
as the dragon-fly, snake doctor or snake feeder? Every lover of the
stream or pond has seen these miniature aeroplanes darting now here, now
there but ever retracing their airy flight along the water's edge or
dipping in a sudden nose dive to skim its very surface. At times it is
seen to rest lazily, wings out-stretched, perched on some projecting
reed or other object. But when approached how suddenly it "takes off"
and is out of reach. The dragon-fly is an almost perfect model of the
modern monoplane. Its two long wings on either side are the planes, its
head the nose, its thorax the fuselage and its long projec