282 LACE-WING PUPA. 



her existence, and becomes from an active grub or larva 

 (correspondent to the caterpillar of Lepidoptera) an inanimate 

 pupa (the likeness of a chrysalis), she furnishes of course but 

 slender matter for the historian of insects. Yet, even in this, 

 her stage of passive transition, our " Lace-wing y in progress 

 affords us something worth observing. After being wearied of 

 aphis slaughter, whereon she has attained her full growth, her 

 last active operation is to enwrap her body in a silken shroud 

 or cocoon, spun previously, not after caterpillar usage by an 

 apparatus at the mouth, but by one provided for the purpose 

 at the tail. 



Within this woven wrapper is effected the usual secondary 

 change, and our grub or larva becomes a pupa. In this form, 

 or rather in her emergement thence a perfect fly, our lace- 

 wing offers another remarkable peculiarity ; or, perhaps we 

 should say more correctly, exemplifies, in a remarkable manner, 

 a circumstance more or less note- worthy with various insect 

 tribes. This is the extraordinary disproportion in size observa- 

 ble between the winged creature, or Imago, and the pupa from 

 whence it is developed. In the curious folding of their 

 members within the chrysalidan cover, and the no less curious 

 expansion of their wings after emergement, the generality of 

 moths and butterflies furnish a beautiful example of this com- 

 pressive and comprehensive work of nature; but the same 

 operation assumes almost the air of what we call a miracle in our 



elegant lace-wing fly, which, in one of its species,* exhibits a 



* Chrysopa perla. 



