FLAT-WINGED GROUP 



3129 



sects fly slowly and heavily, and are to be met with about trees and shrubs, or walls 

 and palings, at no great distance from water. The female, which is somewhat 

 larger than the male, lays her eggs in patches on a plant or other object in the 

 vicinity of water. There may be several hundred eggs packed closely together in a 

 single cluster; they stand upright, being cylindrical in form, with rounded ends, 

 and each terminating above in a little white projection. The larvae hatch in a few 

 weeks, and then find their way into water, where they creep on the mud in search 

 of the aquatic creatures on which they feed. When full grown, they are about an 

 inch long, with a body tapering slightly toward the head, and, more gradually, to- 

 ward the long and narrow tail. The head and three thoracic rings are horny, the 

 rest of the body having a softer integument. The larva, which has strong legs and 



LIFE HISTORY OF THE COMMON ANT-LION. 



a. Imago ; b. La-rva ; c. Pupa. 



(Natural size.) 



can walk well, breathes by means of tracheal gills, having the form of jointed ap- 

 pendages attached in pairs to the sides of the first seven abdominal segments. 

 When the time for pupation arrives, generally about May or June, the larva leaves 

 the water and seeks a place to bury itself in the earth. Having excavated a little 

 cell, it throws off the larval skin and becomes a pupa, which has the legs and wings 

 free from the body, but inclosed in special sheaths. After a few weeks longer it is 

 transformed into the perfect insect. 



The lace- winged flies, ant-lions, mantis flies, and some other families, have been 

 associated in a third group of Planipennia, to which the name Megaloptera is given. 

 In all, the wings are relatively large and closely reticulated; the prothorax being 

 variable in size and form, and the joints of the tarsi not dilated. The mantis flies 

 (Mantispida:} take their name from the shape of the fore-legs, and their position 



