Horticulturists and Insects.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 434, 4 January 1890, Page 5

Horticulturists and Insects.

A writer truly says, as we have often said, that the horticulturist should be able to distinguish injurious from beneficial species of insects. The majority of insects are vegetable feeders, but there are a great many that feed upon or within the bodies of other insects, causing them to die. These latter are called predaceous or parasitic, and, in the main, are beneficial, as they destroy many injurious forms. When the lice have been mostly eaten from a plant by the lady-beetles, the orchardist, finding many of the latter and few of the former, naturally attributes the damage to the beetles, and proceeds to destroy all that he can find. Nature’s check is in this way removed, and the lice increase again, and the injury goes on, perhaps worse than before. It is not at all uncommon for entomologists to receive these little friendly insects from farmers or fruit-growers, who report them as doing much damage to some tree or plant.' The lady-beetles or lady-birds, as they are often called, are among the most beneficial of our predaceous insects. Their food consists almost entirely of plant-lice and the eggs of insects; and they should be protected. -Nearly every one knows these insects in their adult state. They are rather small, and are usually decorated with bright white or black spots.