814 STUDIES IN AUSTRALIAN NEUROPTERA, vii., 



evidence should be obtainable when a careful comparison can be 

 made between the mouth-parts here described and those found 

 in other families of the Order. This research, I hope to carry 

 out later on. 



Habits of the Imago. 



During the day-time, the imagines rest concealed and motion- 

 less, either upon the underside of a leaf, or hidden away in debris 

 of dead leaves and sticks. Hence they are seldom captured, 

 though occasionally one may be taken by beating. 



At night time, they become comparatively lively. Ps. eUyans, 

 kept in a large glass-jar, was watched by me for several nights 

 from 8 to 10 p.m. During this time, it fluttered about the jar, 

 visited the moist sugar supplied as food for it, and fed upon it 

 for periods up to half-an-hour in duration. The third night, 

 after all the insects had fed, I was fortunate enough to see the 

 process of pairing. The female took up a position upon a strip 

 of bark, resting with her wings in the usual position, but con- 

 tinually vibrating them. A male, after several short flights, 

 at last alighted upon the same piece of bark, lower down, and 

 began to climb up towards the female, also vibrating his wings. 

 At last he arrived alongside her, on her right side. The female 

 then raised her right pair of wings, and the male moved in 

 towards her from the side, so that the abdomens of the two 

 insects were almost parallel, and the right pair of wings of the 

 female covered the left side of the male. In this position they 

 remained for pairing, occasionally vibrating their wings. It 

 was not easy to make out exactly how copulation was effected; 

 but it appeared that the male bent the tip of his abdomen round 

 towards the female, and seized her with his anal appendages, at 

 the same time pulling the tip of her abdomen partly round 

 towards him. Thus they remained for some twenty minutes, 

 until a second male came and alighted close to them, and began 

 to flutter around and over them. 



The female apparently did not lay any eggs until some time 

 after pairing, as I searched the jar the following morning and 

 found none. However, during the next few days, she deposited 

 eggs singly, and at long intervals of time apart, in the cotton- 



