THE LACE-WING FLY 
125 
fringe of pale green eggs we may confidently 
look also for its counterpart a swarm of aphides, 
or plant-lice, somewhere in the neighborhood, oc- 
casionally clustering about the very stalks of the 
eggs, and shedding their copious "honey-dew " for 
the benefit of the 
caressing ants, 
which sip at 
their upraised, 
flowing pipes. 
Ah ! if these 
happy ants only 
realized 
menace of 
slender 
who knows 
but that they 
the 
this 
fringe 
may 
? how 
quickly they 
were to be cut 
down by the de- 
stroying teeth ! 
Here, for instance, a wee babe just out of the 
egg slides down the stalk, and falls plump among 
a whole family of the aphides. In a twinkling a 
young aphis larger than himself is impaled on his 
sharp teeth and its body sucked dry. But this is 
merely an appetizer; he has only to extend his 
jaws on right or left to secure another similar 
