Ladybird, ladybird fly away home

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home
Originally uploaded by redmag

While doing a bit of op-shopping this morning I picked up a little book called "Ladybird ladybird Flay away home" by Judy Hawes - sadly i cant find a link to a picture of the cover anywhere - amazon.jp seems to stock it but my japanese is terrible so who knows...... I bought it because I loved the pictures (they are by Ed Emberley).

.....but on the way home I started to read it and it had some wonderful things in it about ladybirds that were so adorable and I had to share them:

• The farmer's wife believed that ladybird's cured toothache, colic and measles (it doesn’t explain how but judging by the picture it might involve letting them crawl all over you! Also not quite clear on who the farmer or his family are)
• The farmer’s daughter believed that if a ladybird walked over her hand it meant that she would be married within a year
• When Ladybirds are scared they fall to the ground and pretend to be dead! and if the situation gets worse they can apparently squish an "evil-smelling" liquid out of the leg joints.

There's also a wonderful story about 500 Australian ladybirds (apparently ours are different) being sent off to California way way back in the 1880s to eat the cotton-cushion scale which was killing all the orange trees. Needless to say the Ozzies kicked major scale ass and saved the day!

Too cute!

Edited to add a link to this cute story about a ladybird invasion - which according to my book is good luck and a sign of good weather and great crops in the future!