Termites or White Ants 



and sisters, but he is frustrated because the succulent 

 eggs are held aloft and out of harm's way by their stalks. 

 The larvae are rendered more fearsome by reason of their 

 coats of stiff bristles. In some of the foreign lacewings 

 these bristles give place to spines, with which a curious 

 habit of the insects is connected. After a spiny larva 

 has made a meal of an insect all lacewing larvae eat 

 insects the hard, indigestible parts are not thrown away, 

 but are affixed to the spines on the creature's back, so 

 that after several meals every spine bears the remains of 

 a victim. This may be a case of strategy or simply of 

 vanity, the trophies being kept, as a huntsman keeps a 

 fox's brush. In any event, a prosperous larva rapidly 

 becomes so covered with the remains of its repasts that 

 it no longer resembles an insect. 



64 



