112 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



fii'st aphis-lion (as the young are called) that hatches will eat for its 

 first meal all his unhatched brothers and sisters. She guards against 

 this fratricide by laying each egg on the top of a stiff stalk of hard 

 silk about half an inch high (Fig. 44, a). Groups of these eggs are 

 very pretty, looking like a tiny forest of white stems bearing on 

 their summits round glistening fruit. When the first of the brood 

 hatches, he scrambles down as best he can from his egg perch to the 

 surface of the leaf, and runs off, quite unconscious that the rest of 

 the family are reposing in peace high above his head." {OomstocJc^s 

 Manual for the Study of Insects^ p. 181). 



Mr. Marlatt, who observed its work in Maryland, says of the 

 young aphis-lion : '^ On approaching the egg or young psylla 

 nymph, it immediately grasps it between its long, curved, man- 

 dible-like organs, which amount to two sucking tubes, between 

 the tips of which the egg or young nymph is held and rolled one 

 way and the other, as between thumb and finger, the juicy con- 

 tents being in the meantime rapidly extracted ; the dry shell is 

 cast aside, the whole operation frequently taking less than a min- 

 ute. The aphis-lion is an extremely hungry one and is always 

 feeding. It eats anything that comes in its way, is totally fear- 



44.— Chrysopa oculata. a, epc^s ; b. full-p:rown larva or aphis-lion • d, larva devouring an 

 adult psylla; e, cocoon : P, adulf- insect; g:, front view of the head of the adult — all 

 enlarged. (Reduced fptiu tij^ure by U- S. Dept. of Agr.) 



less, and is also, unfortunately, cannibalistic, eating its own kind 

 with great readiness. It is a safe estimate to say that one aphis- 

 lion will destroy several hundred eggs and nymphs of the psylla 

 in addition to the adults which it will destroy (see d in figure 44:) 

 in its later larval growth." In about ten days the aphis-lion becomes 



