468 



NEUROPTERA 



live on Aphides, which they suck dry, and at least one species, 

 in all probability several, has the habit of covering itself with 

 the skins of the victims it has sucked ; to these remains it adds 

 other small debris, and the whole mass completely covers and 

 conceals the Insect (Fig. 311, B). The larva is furnished at 

 the sides with projections which serve as pedicels to elongate 

 divergent hairs, and these help to keep the mass in place on 

 the back of the Insect ; some fine threads are distributed through 

 this curious mantle and serve to keep it from disintegration, but 

 whether they are fragments of spiders' webs or are spun by the 

 Insect itself is not quite clear. 



The genus Drepanepteri/Q: consists of several species, and 

 appears to be best represented in the Antipodes ; we have, how- 

 ever, one species in Britain D. phalae- 

 noides (Fig. 298) an extremely interest- 

 ing member of our fauna. This Insect 

 has, like several of its congeners, a 

 moth -like appearance, and it has a 

 peculiar structure for bringing the- hind 

 and fore wings into correlation, the costa 

 at the base of the hind wing being 

 interrupted and prominent, furnished 

 with setae (Fig. 312, A), and playing in a 

 cavity on the under-surface of the front 

 wing. This character is of great interest 

 in connexion with analogous structures 

 of a more perfect nature existing in various 

 moths. M'Lachlan has described and 



interrupt! 



Fig. 312. Portions of wings of figured ^ a more primitive, though analo- 

 A, Under-face of basal parts gous, condition ot the wmgs in Megalomus 

 of the two wings ; a, base Mrtus, also a species of British Hemero- 



of front wing ; h, of hmd * .1 p < c^ -r, 



wing. B, Portion of front biina. Another very curious feature of D. 

 wing, showing the apparent phalaenoides is shown in Fig. 3 1 2, B, there 



erruption of nervures. '- . - 



being a narrow space on the hind part of 

 the front wing from which the colour is absent, while the nervures 

 appear to be interrupted ; they are, however, really present, though 

 transparent ; the nature of this peculiar mark is quite unknown, 

 but is of considerable interest in connexion with the small trans^ 

 parent spaces that exist on the wings of some butterflies. 



1 Tr. enU Soc, London, 1868, p. 189. 



