282 INSECTS AT HOME. 



though not so eminently beavitiful as the preceding insect, is yet 

 a pretty creature. The wings are translucent, with a glossy, 

 iridescent sheen, very much resembling the surface of the 

 varnished skeleton leaves on which the Chinese artists paint 

 such exquisite little pictures. The spots v>^ith which they are 

 variegated are pale brown. The insect is tolerably common, 

 and at Oxford is plentiful on the branches of oaks. The pupa 

 is to be found in the moist earth of ditch banks. 



Befoee passing to the next order, it is necessary to say 

 a few words respecting the Scorpion-fly, or Panorpidse, which 

 form a very marked family of their own. 



They derive their popular name from the remarkable con- 

 formation of the abdomen, the joints of which are almost 

 exactly like those of a Scorpion, and in the typical insect, the 

 common Scorpion-fly {Panorpa communis), are terminated, 

 in the male, by a pair of small forceps, sufficiently strong to 

 make themselves felt on the skin of the human hand. When 

 the insect is handled, it brandishes its abdomen about in so 

 menacing a fashion that I have often seen its captors hastily 

 loosen their hold, thinking that it really must possess the 

 power of mischief which it so well imitates. The pincers are 

 formed by a development of the eighth segment of the abdomen. 

 The insect is a very common one, and can be taken by beating 

 hedges and underwood. 



There are only two British genera of Panorpidse — one to 

 which the common Scorpion-fly belongs, and which contains 

 five species ; and the other, named Boreus, of which a single 

 species is known, Boreus hyemalis. 



This is a most singular being. It is a very tiny insect, and, 

 with its long legs and peculiarly shaped body, bears a great 

 resemblance to a larval grasshopper. The form of the head, 

 however, is enough to show that it really belongs to the 

 Panorpidse. In the male, the wings are very small, useless 

 for flight, and project from the back something like Mr. Punch's 

 hump. In the female, the wings are entirely undeveloped, 

 and the body is terminated by a long ovipositor, very curiously 

 constructed. There is no direct passage or ' oviduct,' so that 

 the eggs must first be deposited, and then picked up between 



