104 



NEUROPTERA. 



projections. By the assistance of this most efficient apparatus, the mole- 

 cricket makes its way beneath the soil with the utmost facility, and at the 

 proper season digs for itself in the earth, a little chamber with smoothly po- 

 lished walls, in which it deposits from a hundred to three hundred eggs, in 

 their shape much like little sugar-plums. Intricate winding passages lead 

 from this retreat to the surface of the bank, at the mouth of one of which 

 the old cricket sits and chirps cheerfully all the day long. 



LACE-WINGED INSECTS. ORDER NEUROPTERA.* 



The insects belonging to the Neuropterous Order possess 

 four transparent wings, for the most part of equal size. The 

 nervures are numerous and connected, so as to form a network 

 pattern more or less close. The mouth is armed with jaws, but 

 the body is not furnished with a sting. The larvae are active, 

 and always provided with six jointed legs, each terminated by a 

 pair of hooks. 



The Dragon-Flies (Libelluld). The brilliant dragon-flies that career 

 on flashing wing through the lanes and over the ponds in the warmest 

 weather of summer give us the highest idea of insect power, combined 

 with elegance of form. Their large round lustrous eyes, both furnished with 



twelve thousand po- 

 lished lenses, that 

 command each 

 point on the broad 

 span of sky or 

 earth ; their bur- 

 nished armour, 

 gemmed with green 

 and gold and black; 

 their gorgeous 

 wings, like films of 

 living glass stretch- 

 ed over network (to 

 compare with which 

 the finest lace is but 

 a sorry piece of 

 workmanship), pro- 

 claim them tyrants 

 of the air and mo- 

 narchs of the insect 

 world; yet in the ear- 

 liest stages of their 



FIG. 93. DRAGON-FLY. existence, the splen- 



did creatures, array- 

 ed in humbler guise, inhabited some neighbouring pool or ditch. The larva is 



* vfvpov, neuron, nervure ; irTtpov, pteron, a wing. 



