82 LIFE STORIES OF AUSTRALIAN INSECTS. 



about Jin. long; the general colour is green mottled 

 with brown, and the body is covered sparsely with 

 short hairs. It possesses huge sucking jaws, and 

 moves rapidly by means of its three pairs of legs. 



Recently we observed these larvae on the under 

 surface of radish leaves, which happened to be liter- 

 ally covered with aphides. Backwards and forwards 

 the tiny creatures sped, and just sucked the contents 

 of the aphides, leaving only the skins. These skins 

 in some cases were thrown back on the body in 

 order to disguise the larva. When aphides or scale 

 insects are scarce, small caterpillars or grubs become 

 good substitutes ; failing these, they become canni- 

 bals, and devour their brothers who do not happen 

 to be quick enough to evade their jaws. It 

 is full grown in about three weeks, but this time 

 \aries according to the food supply. 



The larva spins a delicate spherical cocoon (Plate 

 12, "Fig. 4), which it attaches to a leaf or twig. This 

 cocoon looks like a tiny soft cotton ball. It is not 

 more than K inch long, and is small in comparison 

 to the size of the larva or of the adult. On top of 

 the cocoon is a tiny lid, which is lifted when the 

 adult "golden eye" pushes its head forth. About 

 14 days are passed in the pupal stage; thus the 

 period from egg to full grown insect varies from 4 

 to 5 weeks. 



The green lace wing (Plate 12, Fig. 7) has a 

 very close relative in the "brown lace wing," which 

 closely resembles it, but is brown and somewhat 

 smaller. 



The "painted lace wing" (PsycJwpsis) is met 



