APPLE LEAVES, APHIS LIONS DEVOUR THEIR OWN EGGS. 75 



destroyed, when, having fully glutted his appetite, he retired into 

 a corner of the vial to repose. This larva pertained to the spe- 

 cies hereinafter described under the name of the New-York 

 golden-eye. • 



It is thus evident that many of the species of this family of in- 

 sects, contrary to what has been heretofore published, when first 

 hatched are too feeble and timorous to attack plant-lice or any 

 other living prey, and subsist during the first stages of their lives 

 upon the eggs of insects. By destroying these eggs they are often 

 as beneficial to us, probably, as they would be if aphides were 

 their sole food. The aphis-lion, however, is perfectly indiscrimi- 

 nate in his appetite, consuming the eggs of beneficial as well as 

 injurious insects, and we now learn why it is that the parent of 

 these insects places her eggs upon thread-like pedicels, whereby 

 they are elevated from the surface of the leaves. Hitherto it has 

 been unknown why this insect deposits her eggs in this singular 

 manner. By a reference to that mine of information upon all 

 subjects of this kind, Westwood's Introduction, (vol. ii. p. 47,) 

 w r e find it merely stated that these eggs have been supposed to be 

 placed in this manner to protect them from the attacks of para- 

 sites. But we see not why a parasitic insect may not alight upon 

 and puncture and drop its eggs within these eggs almost as readi- 

 ly as it could do if they were placed upon the surface of the leaf. 

 Certainly many of these parasitic insects display far more sagacity 

 than this would be in discovering the appropriate receptacle for 

 their eggs. But speculation upon this subject is no longer neces- 

 sary when we have facts to guide us to a conclusion. In a recent 

 communication to the Country Gentleman, which is not yet pub- 

 lished, (No. 5 of my series of entomological articles in that peri- 

 odical,) I suggested that these eggs are elevated upon pedicels to 

 prevent their being found by the young larvae of their own kind, 

 which probably would instantly devour them if they were laid 

 upon the surface of the leaves. To ascertain more fully the cor- 

 rectness of this opinion, I sought an egg which was upon the point 

 of hatching, and placed it in a vial; the next day a young aphis 

 lion was found disclosed from this egg. Two freshly laid eggs 

 were now obtained; one of these was placed in the vial elevated 



