18 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 
Fig. 59. 

two lobes, at the side of which two small rounded lobes are attached ; 
the labial palpi have been described by Latreille and Curtis as wanting, 
but they appear to me to be represented by the last-mentioned pair 
of lobes; the eyes are of moderate size, semiglobose, lateral, and 
prominent; the ocelli are three in number, and placed in a triangle 
between the eyes (fig. 59. 6.) ; the body is short, gibbose, ovate, and 
soft ; the prothorax is very short ; the meso- and meta-thorax larger 
and deeply impressed; the wings are hyaline, deflexed, with con- 
spicuous veins; the anterior larger than the posterior, with a large 
stigma, and a few irregular, longitudinal, and transverse nerves ; they 
are often variegated and coloured; the lower wings are not folded ; 
and the veins are differently arranged to those of the anterior pair; 
the abdomen is short, ovate, and convex, the ovipositor, which exists 
in the females, enclosed in two valves, not being exserted; the legs 
are long and slender; the tarsi 2 or 3-jointed. 
These minute insects frequent the trunks of trees, palings, old walls, 
stones covered with lichens, old books, &c., for the purpose of feeding, 
either upon the still more minute animalcule, which inhabit those 
situations, or, more probably, upon the decaying vegetable matter 
to be there met with. They are extremely active, and when ap- 
proached they endeavour to hide themselves by running to the op- 
posite side of the trunk of the tree, or other object on which they 
are stationed. The perfect insects are produced towards the end 
of the summer, when they sometimes appear in great numbers. The 
larvee and pupe are equally active with the imago, from which the 
former differ in being apterous, whilst the pup have rudimental 
wings. 
Latreille published a monograph of these insects in Coqueberit’s 
