468 



NEUROPTERA 



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

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

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

 other small deljris, and the whole mass completely covers and 

 conceals the Insect (i'ig. 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 througli 

 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 Drcpancpteryj: consists of several species, and 

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

 ever, one species in Britain — B. jjihalae- 

 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 

 Fig 312.— Portions of wing-s of figured ^ a more primitive, though analo- 



JJrepanepteryxpkalaenoides. . ° 



A, Under-face of ba.sai part.f gous. Condition 01 the wmgs in Megalomus 

 of the two ^ving,s; a ba,se Urtus, also a species of British Hemero- 



01 tront wmg ; 5, of limd , ■*- 



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



t^^^l^:^^ phcdaenoides is shown in Fig. 3 1 2, B, there 

 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. 



^ Tr. cut. Soc, London, IS 



p. 189. 



