I 



the Biology of some British Neuroptera. 517 



extruded to their full extent (Plate XXXVIII, fig. 8). They 

 are white and translucent, curved slightly outwards. Thus 

 the male rests the whole night through. It rarely flies 

 and is less active than the female. The first male I observed 

 " calling," continued to repeat the performance every night 

 for a week and hardly moved its position at all during 

 that period, but I had no females then. Later I secured 

 both males and females and witnessed the entire pairing. 



The male everts his scent glands, and almost immediately 

 females within a foot or two become agitated and wave 

 their antennae vigorously. Next, they walk or fly towards 

 the male and commence caressing the scent glands with 

 their antennae and palpi. The male withdraws the glands 

 and turns round to meet the female. Male and female 

 caress with antennae waving, and may thus walk round 

 each other for a minute or so. At last the male carefully 

 bites hold of one of the fore coxae of the female, on which- 

 ever side of her he may be, and both insects bend the tips 

 of their abdomens to meet each other. The female's 

 abdomen passes over that of the male and then completely 

 over the aj)ex of the male's abdomen. The female's 

 abdomen bears ventrally at its apex two flattened rod-like 

 valves. These pass under the end of the male's abdomen. 

 Thus the tip of the female's abdomen completely grasps 

 that of the male, passing over and below. Now, the rod- 

 like valves of the female are levered forward and anteriorly 

 upward to seize the " penis " of the male as with forceps. 

 Thus the pair rest, and the male now relinquishes his hold 

 of the female's fore leg. The whole performance of pairing 

 is very leisurely, and occupies several minutes. From time 

 to time, peristaltic contractions of the male's abdomen may 

 be noticed, and the female levers with the rod-like valves 

 as though to extract something from the male's abdomen. 

 This indeed is the case, for in from ten minutes to an hour 

 a large white spermatophore is withdrawn and remains pro- 

 jecting forward from the tip of the abdomen of the female, 

 the rod-like valves lying just below it (Plate XXXVIII, 

 fig. 11). So large indeed is this spermatophore, that having 

 previously dissected a male, I thought that the whole of 

 the vesiculae seminales had been accidentally withdrawn 

 and that consequently the male would not pair again. 

 Not so, however; I have seen eight pairings all precisely 

 and in detail the same, and, moreover, one male may pair 

 two or three times. Hagen (5) mistook the spermatophore 



