HEMIPTERA. 197 



blackish color, sparingly clothed with short hairs, and sometimes 

 with a yellow spot at the end of the wing-covers, whose young are 

 clothed with short tufts or flakes of the most delicate white down. 

 These insects belong to the genus Scymnus, which means a lion's 

 whelp, and they well merit such a name, for their young, in pro- 

 portion to their size, are as sanguinary and ferocious as the most 

 savage beasts of prey. I have often seen one of these little tufted 

 animals preying upon the plant-lice, catching and devouring, with 

 the greatest ease, lice nearly as large as its own body, one after 

 another, in rapid succession, without apparently satiating its hun- 

 ger or diminishing its activity. 



The second kind of plant-lice destroyers are the young of the 

 golden-eyed lace-winged fly, Chrysoya perla. This fly is of a 

 pale green color, and has four wings resembling delicate lace, and 

 eyes of the brilliancy of polished gold, as its generical name im- 

 plies ; but, notwithstanding its delicacy and beauty, it is extremely 

 disgusting from the offensive odor that it exhales. It suspends its 

 eggs, by threads, in clusters beneath the leaves where plant-lice 

 abound. The young, or larva, is a rather long and slender grub, 

 provided with a pair of large curved and sharp teeth (jaws), mov- 

 ing laterally, and each perforated with a hole through which it 

 sucks the juices of its victims. The havoc it makes is astonish- 

 ing ; for one minute is all the time which it requires to kill the 

 largest plant-louse, and suck out the fluid contents of its body. 



The last of the enemies of plant-lice are the maggots or young 

 of various two-winged flies belonging to the genus Syrphus. 

 Many of these flies are black with yellow bands on their bodies. 

 I have often seen them hovering over small trees and other plants, 

 depositing their eggs, which they do on the w T ing, like the bot- 

 fly, curving their tails beneath the leaves, and fixing here and 

 there an egg, wherever plant-lice are discovered. Others lay 

 their eggs near the buds of trees, where the young may find their 

 appropriate nourishment as soon as they are hatched. The young 

 are maggots, which are thick and blunt behind, tapering and point- 

 ed before ; their mouths are armed with a triple-pointed dart, 

 with which they pierce their prey, elevate it above their heads, 

 and feast upon its juices at leisure. Though these maggots are 

 totally blind, they are enabled to discover their victims without 



