CHAPTER XVII 



NEUEOPTEEA CONTIXUEl) PSOCIDAE (BOOK - LICE AND DEATH- 



WATCHES) THE FIKST FAMILY OF AMPHIBIOUS NEUROPTEEA 



(PBKLIDAE, stone-flies). 



Fam. IV. Psocidae — Book-Lice, Death-Watches. 



Minute Insects with slender, thread-like, or hair-like antennae ; 

 four delicate menibranous ivings, the front fair of which are 

 , ^ the larger ; their neuration is not 



aiundant and is irregular, so that 

 the cells are cdso irregularly ar- 

 ranged ; the transverse nervules are 

 only one or tivo in number} Pro- 

 thorax very small, in the tvinged 

 „ „., „ J- ■ _, forms Quite concealed tetiveen the 



Fig. 241. — Psocus fasciatus, •' ^ 



England. (After M'Lachian.) head and the large mesothorax ; this 

 latter closely connected with, or fused 

 with, the metathorax. Species quite ivingless, or with loings 

 unfitted for flight, exist ; in them the prothorax is not so ex- 

 tremely small, lohile the mesothorax is smaller than in the 

 ivinged forms. Tarsi of two or three segments. Metamorphosis 

 slight, marked chiefly by the development of wings and ocelli. 



The Psocidae are witliout exception small and soft-bodied Insects, 

 and are only known to those who are not entomologists by the 

 wingless forms that run about in uninhabited or quiet apart- 

 ments, and are called dust-lice or book-lice. They are perhaps 

 more similar to Termitidae than to any other Insects, but 

 the two families differ much in the structure of their wings, and 

 are totally dissimilar in the nature of their lives. 



1 In some exotic species there is a dense network on a part of the anterior wing. 



