IX 



NEUROPTERA 



Lace-wings, Dobsons, etc. 



This is a small order of carnivorous insects of peculiar and 

 interesting form. The wings are broad and nearly equal 

 and full of veins or nervures, as the name signifies,* and these 

 veins have more than lace-like delicacy and beauty of design. 

 The antennae are long. The mouthparts are of the biting 

 type already described. The tarsi are 5 -join ted, and there 

 are no tails. 



These insects are often more or less local in range, and not 

 all of them are everywhere available, but they are common 

 enough in proper situations. Dobson flies and their larvae 

 "hellgrammites," are among the insects best known to the 

 fishermen who catch them for bait in the riffles of rapid 

 streams. 



One of the commonest Neuroptera is the lace-wing fly. 

 This we will have encountered already in our sweeping of 

 the vegetation; a slender green insect with shining golden 

 eyes and exquisite gauzy wings with green veins. It is dis- 

 tinguished also by its bad odor. We may have seen the eggs 

 attached to some green leaf — oblong, chalky-white eggs, 

 each on a white, threadlike stalk half an inch long. The 

 mother lace-wing with wonderful instinct puts out with 

 each egg a drop of fluid silk and then lifts the egg, drawing 

 the silk out into a stalk beneath it, holds it an instant while 



* Neuron, nerve and pteron, wing. 



85 



