62 NEUROPTEIIA. 



victims to the voracity of the liunsjry trout or other 

 finny inhabitant of the rippling stream or lake (Fig. 1). 



The term Ephemera^ so applicable to this creature of 

 a day, is as old as the time of Aristotle, who speaks of 

 certain insects which live and fly about till evening and 

 die at sunset. The life of the May-fly is pre-eminently 

 a short one, and though specimens have been kept alive 

 for some days, the word correctly enough describes the 

 shortness of its existence in its insect stage. Though 

 these insects sometimes occur in England in enormous 

 multitudes, the numbers are vastly exceeded in Switzer- 

 land and other countries. I have somewhere read that 

 these insects are so plentiful that they have been col- 

 lected and used to feed pigs ! 



On Plate II., Fig. 5, the reader will see a drawing of 

 the Lace-wing-fly {Chrysopa vulgaris)^ a representation 

 of the family of Hemerobiidce. It is not easy to imagine 

 anything more beautiful and delicate than the Lace- 

 wing-fly, with its eyes of burnished gold, its wide 

 gauze-like wings, reflecting varying hues of pink or 

 green, according to the incidence of the angle of light. 

 The larvae of these insects are to be enumerated amongst 

 the farmers' friends, inasmuch as they are great de- 

 vourers of the Aphides or Plant-lice. Very curious are 

 the eggs of the Lace-wing-fly ; they are laid in small 

 bunches upon leaves. Each egg is supported at the end 

 of a long thread or footstalk about half an inch long. 

 The mode in which this insect deposits her eggs is as 

 follows : she bends down her tail and presses it against 

 a leaf, upon which she places a small drop of viscous 

 matter secreted by herself, quickly she raises her tail 

 and draws out a thread of this viscous matter, which 



