1900 1 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 51 



a locality but what suits its present needs ; seemingly conscious of its being but a transient 

 resident anywhere ; chased from the north by the approach of winter, it is compejlpd by 

 a necpssity of its natuie to return to it in the spring. Leaving the north in uniced multi- 

 tudes in the autumn, it returns to it by independent units in the spring ; aad bnlieving 

 that thtre are several broods of it in the south, and that each of them is controlled by 

 the game strong desire to travel, which at that season means northward ; and that these 

 will follow the same route as did the previous ones, depositing eggs where some had been 

 laid bt fore; I get an explar ation for the comparative freshness of the butteifles that 

 are lain in arriving at the north, and. in. the great disparity in the size of caterpillars 

 found on the milk-weeds duripg the season. But where to draw the line between north 

 and south for them, I will not undertake. 



PARASITES IN THE EGGS OF CHRYSOPA. 



, By J. Alston Moffat, London. 



On the 19th of June, 1900, whilst strolling in Victoria Park, London, my atten- 

 tion was arr sted by an unusual locking oViject on the underside of a linden It'af, attached 

 to a pn j cting branch a little above the level of my eyes. I plucked the leaf to closely 

 examine it, >)Ut could not decide as to whether it was an 

 animal cr vegetable production. Afterwards remem- 

 bering that I had seen an illustration somewhat re- 

 sembling it, I turned it up, and found that singular 

 obj'Ct to he an Pf g cluster of the delicate lace-winged j'ig, g. 



fly of the genus Chrysopa. 



The Rev. J. G Wood, in Insects at Home, page 281, thus discoursed upon the eggs 

 of this insect : *' They aie generally deposited upon h aves, but, instead of being laid 

 directI^ on the leaf, every egg is fixed to the erd of a slender footstalk about half an inch 

 ill length. This footstalk is formed from a viscous matter secreted by the female, and is 

 delic-itely white and trans'ucent. Mr A. G. Butler, of the Biitish Museum, told me 

 that he has kppt lace winged flies, and often seen th^m l»»y their eggs. The end of t'le 

 abdomen is first pressed against the leaf, and a tiny drop of the viscous matter def^oeited. 

 The >*bdomen is then raised qaickly so as to draw out a thread, which becomes stifi and 

 hard almost as soon as it comes into contact with the air. Then the insect |>au8e3 ali tie, 

 and rapidly places an egg on the end of the thread, fixing it there with anoth r drop of 

 the secreti' n. The eggs are always laid in groups. . . . They b^ar a curious resem- 

 blance to the capsules of certain mosses, and indeed have been described atd figured in 

 books as specimens of British moss". Which is not very surprising, as they instantly 

 sugges ed a moss in fruit, but much more slender than any moss that I had sei n 



There were thirty-four egss in the cluster, and a single one placed on the upper side 

 of the leaf. The eggs were about the thirtieth of an inch in length, and about as long 

 again as tb(-y were wide. The stalks would bend to every breath, like a field of heavy 

 laden grain before a breeze; giving the imprt ssion that they were top-heavy. I placed 

 the leaf in a box and awaited developments. In a day or so the eggs chang' d colour, be- 

 coming dai ker, and I fancied larger. One morning on taking my accustomed view, some 

 of the egyH had become white, and upon applying a lens I found they were empty, nothing 

 but an extremely thin shell left with a hole in the top, out of which an insect had come. 

 Ithtn made diligent search to find them, when I at last discovered three tiny creatures 

 in a depreshion of the leaf near the mid rib, as if they had therein 80ut>ht safety and 8h^lter. 

 They were about three times as long as th^y were wide, and each armed with a pair of 

 trtmen ousj-iws which appeared to firm quite one half their entire length ; reminding 

 me of the ant lion, to whom it is said to be related. That waf< my only view ot them, 

 for the next time I looked they had all disappeared. Having no Aphides to feed npon, 

 probat.ly the stronger devued the weaker and then escaped from the box. Six of 

 the pgiis bad matured and given forth their contents, whiltt in the me<*nime the others 

 had assumed a haden hue. On the 28 h of the month I was looking at tht^xn to see if 

 there were symptoms of change, and wondering what might be the cause of their present 



