230 Nerve-winged Insects; Scorpion-flies; Caddis-flies 



lights. Its body is blackish, and the wings are clear but mottled with irreg- 

 ular brownish-black spots. When at rest the wings are held steeply roof- 

 like over the back. Nothing is known of its life-history. Of the best-known 

 genus, Hemerobius (Fig. 317), twenty species have been noted in this country, 

 but they are small, dull-colored insects, and are rather rare, or at least 

 infrequently seen. Comstock says they occur in forests and especially on 

 coniferous trees. The larvae are like the Chrysopa larvae, predaceous and 

 well equipped with big strong head and sharp, curved seizing and blood- 

 sucking mouth-parts. The larvae (Fig. 318) of some species have the 

 curious habit of piling up on their back the empty, shriveled skins of their 

 victims, until the aphis-lion is itself almost wholly concealed by this unlovely 

 load of relicts. This is true of all the Hemerobius larvae I have seen in 

 California. Stripped of the covering of skins the aphis-lion is seen to have 

 a short, broad, flattened body, with numerous long, spiny hairs arising from 

 tubercles. These hairs help to hold the mass of insect skins together. 



Still other Neuroptera with fierce, ever-hungry, carnivorous larvae are 

 the ant-lions, or Myrmeleonidae. The horrible pit of Kipling's story, into 



FIG. 318. 



FIG. 319. 



FIG. 320. 



FlG. 318. Larva of Hemerobius sp. covered with detritus. (From life; four times natural 



size.) 



FIG. 319. Larva of ant-lion, Myrmeleon sp. (Three times natural size.) 

 FlG. 320. Pit of ant-lion and, in lower right-hand corner, pupal sand-cocoon, from 



which adult has issued, of ant-lion, Myrmeleon sp. (About natural size.) 



which Morrowbie Jukes rode one night, is paralleled in fact in that lesser 

 world of insect life under our feet. The foraging ant, too intent on bringing 

 home a rich spoil for the hungry workers in the crowded nest to watch care- 

 fully for dangers in its path, finds itself without warning on the crumbling 



