Lady-Bird (sometimes called Lady-Bug), a small beetle of the trimerous division, and of the genus coccinella (Frisch). In this extensive and well known genus the body is hemispherical, the thorax very short, the antennae composed of 11 joints and the tarsi of 3, the elytra convex, the under surface flat, and the legs short; the digestive canal is nearly straight, and as long as the body. The general colors are red, yellow, or orange with black spots, or black with white, red, or yellow spots. Many species have been described. The larva) are small, bluish, flattened grubs, spotted with red or yellow, and with six legs on the anterior part of the body; they are hatched from yellowish eggs, of a disagreeable odor, laid usually in the spring in clusters among the aphides or plant lice. Both the larvae and the perfect insects destroy immense numbers of these lice, and are therefore among the best friends of the agriculturist; when found upon plants they are in quest of their insect prey, and deprive vegetation of none of its juices, and they are entirely guiltless of producing the potato rot or any other similar disease.

There are some very small lady-birds of a blackish color, and with a few short hairs, of the genus scymnus, whose larvae are as savage among the plant lice as the lion among the smaller mammals.