130 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED 



try to drink the family blood flowing in a younger 

 brother's body ; he attempted at first to find a weak 

 place in the armor of his intended victim, but the latter 

 always turned and twisted in a way to present a horny 

 surface to his murderous brother and thus managed 

 finally to escape, though he certainly showed evidences 

 of genuine fright. 



After a season of larval imbibing each aphis-lion rolls 

 itself up in a little ball and weaves around itself a thick 

 coat of glistening white silk, thus making a cocoon that 

 looks like a seed-pearl fastened to a leaf. It is to be 

 hoped that during this period of voluntary seclusion 

 the reckise meditates upon the selfishness of its past 

 career and decides upon an entire reformation. This is 

 evidently the case ; for, after a time, perhaps a whole 

 winter, it cuts a dainty, circular lid at the top of its 

 pearl-prison and emerges a creature no longer spindle 

 shaped and sickle jawed, but with wide, filmy wings 

 that have been folded and packed in the tiny cocoon. 

 In fact, the wonders which have been worked in that 

 pearly cell are greater than those wrought by any magi- 

 cian in fairy tale ; for within its walls an ugly, greedy 

 aphis-lion has been changed to a beautiful, golden-eyed 

 lace-wing. 



After studying this Chrysopa biography, one natu- 

 rally wonders how these golden-eyed mothers gained 



