62 Observations on Insects affecting the Tumi]) Crops. 



nervures and stig^ma blackish ; fore shanks and feet sometimes 

 ochraceous ; leng:th, 2 J lines ; expanse 4|. 



Mr. A. Kennedy observed the males of this species flying about 

 the thatch of a summer-house and the neighbouring shrubs, at 

 ClaptoUj in thousands, the beginning of July, and the females 

 became numerous about the 1 0th : they employed the open straws 

 of the thatch to deposit their prey in, which amounted to a 

 hundred aphides in a single straw, containing cells with partitions 

 made apparently of the scrapings of the inside of the straw 

 cemented together. The eggs deposited in them by the Pse?i are 

 white and semilransparent, and are attached to the abdomen of 

 an aphis near the bottom of a cell.* I bred these flies likewise 

 from straws out of the roof of a summer-house at Bristol, the end 

 of June. 



We now come to a set of insects, which, like the lady-birds, 

 begin to feed upon the aphides as soon as they escape from the 

 egg, and from that time are constantly hunting after them, until 

 they change to beautiful flies, one of which is called the Golden- 

 eye, These larvae are ferocious little animals (fig. 19*), named 

 by the French "lions des pucerons," or plant-lice lions. Some 

 clothe themselves, like Hercules, with the skins of their victims 

 (fig. 19j, and others with the green and delicate lichens which 

 cover old paling, and the trunks and arms of trees, so that unless 

 the larvae move, it is impossible to detect them ; and thus, con- 

 cealed from the prying search of the smaller birds, they lie in 

 ambush for their prey : but when they are encamped upon a leaf, 

 amongst the sluggish aphides, they seize them with their long and 

 powerful jaws, and will devour the largest of them in half a 

 minute. The food of this voracious larva, however, is not con- 

 fined to the aphides ; for two which I found at the end of August, 

 on being placed in a box, immediately attacked each other, the 

 conqueror making a meal of his companion, and soon after sucking 

 the contents out of a caterpillar three-fourths of an inch long, leav- 

 ing only their skins. These larvae vary considerably in colour, 

 being whitish or fuscous, with brown or orange spots, some hav- 

 ing the sides of their bodies furnished with sixteen fleshy tubercles, 

 producing a spreading bunch of hairs : they have a pair of slender 

 horns, two long stout curved jaws, and a pair of long slender- 

 jointed feelers ; besides their six feet, the apex of the abdomen 

 is prehensile, forming, as it were, a seventh foot, which has the 

 power of adhering to very smooth substances. After feeding for fif- 

 teen or sixteen days, they spin a fine silken whitish cocoon (fig. 20), 

 which is often clothed with the bits of lichen which formed 

 a shield to the larvae : they vary from the size of pearl barley to a 



* Phil. Mag., Jan. 1837, p. 18. 



