464 



NEUROPTERA 



a small appendage. Only a few species of Mantispa are found in 

 Southern Europe ; but the group has representatives in most of 

 the warmer regions of the world, and will probably prove to be 

 rather numerous in species. The front legs are used for the 

 capture of prey in the same way as the somewhat similar front 

 legs of the Mantidae. The transformations have been observed 

 by Brauer l in the case of one of the European species, M. styriaca. 

 The eggs are numerous but very small, and are deposited in such 

 a manner that each is borne by a long slender stalk, as in the 



lacewing flies. The larvae 

 are hatched in autumn ; 

 they then hibernate and go 

 for about seven months 

 before they take any food. 

 In the spring, when the 

 spiders of the genus Lycosa 

 have formed their bags of 



eggs, the minute Mantispa 

 larvae (Fig. 308, A) find 

 them out, tear a hole in the 

 bag, and enter among the 

 eggs ; here they wait until 

 the eggs have attained a 

 fitting stage of development 



before they commence to 

 FIG. 308. Mantispa styriaca. A, Larva newly 



hatched, or first Ibrni ; B, mature larva. (After feed. Brauer found that 



Brauer -) they ate the spiders when 



these were quite young, and then changed their skin for the 

 second time, the first moult having taken place when they 

 were hatched from the egg. At this second moult the larva 

 undergoes a considerable change of form ; it becomes unfit for 

 locomotion, and the head loses the comparatively large size and 

 high development it previously possessed. The Mantispa larva 

 only one of which flourishes in one egg-bag of a spider under- 

 goes this change in the midst of a mass of dead young spiders 

 it has gathered together in a peculiar manner. It undergoes 

 110 further change of skin, and is full fed in a few days ; after 

 which it spins a cocoon in the interior of the egg-bag of the 

 spider, and changes to a nymph inside its larva - skin. 

 : Verh. zool.-bot. Gcs. Wien, xix. 1869, p. 831. 



