DRAGON-FLIES AND OTHER INSECTS. 245 



inactive during the day, and when touched emit an 

 offensive odour. The females deposit their eggs upon 

 plants, especially those infested with aphides, attach- 

 ing them at the ends of long, slender, rigid footstalks, 

 the base of which is attached to the leaf. These 

 stalked eggs have somewhat the appearance of minute 

 fungi, and it is a fact that an excellent mycologist 

 once described and figured them as the type of 

 a new genus of microscopic fungi. The larvae which 

 are produced from these eggs are the ant-lions, which 

 Professor Westwood has graphically described. In 

 the month of May, he says, a singular-looking object 

 may be occasionally seen walking over plants, having 

 very little of the appearance of an insect, resembling 

 rather a moving mass of cottony or other materials : 

 on carefully examining the mass with a magnifying 

 glass, we perceive a head furnished with two long and 

 slender curved jaws, followed by three pairs of legs 

 protruded from the mass, which being removed we find 

 an active fleshy larva, something like that of the lady- 

 bird, covered with scattered hairs. This larva feeds 

 upon aphides, and is extremely voracious, seizing 

 them with its jaws and sucking their juices. These 

 jaws are moreover used by the insects for the further 

 purpose of forming the covering which it carries upon 

 its back, and which often consists of the skins of the 

 dead bodies of its victims. When full grown this larva 

 spins a cocoon, within which it is transformed into a 

 pupa. In this state it often remains through the 

 winter. There are several of these aphis-lions, differ 

 ing from each other somewhat in form. 



During a woodland ramble in summer-time one is 



