THE LACE-WING FLY 



125 



fringe of pale green eggs we may confidently 

 look also for its counterpart — a swarm of aphides, 

 or plant-lice, somewhere in the neighborhood, oc- 

 casionally clustering about the very stalks of the 

 eggs, and shedding their copious "honey-dew" for 

 the benefit of the 

 caressing ants, 

 which sip at 

 their upraised, 

 flowing pipes. 

 Ah ! if these 

 happy ants only 

 realized the 

 menace of this 

 slender frincre 

 — who knows 

 but that they 

 may? — how 

 quickly they 

 were to be cut 

 down by the de- 

 stroying teeth ! 



Here, for instance, a wee babe just out of the 

 •egg slides down the stalk, and falls plump among 

 a whole family of the aphides. In a twinkling a 

 young aphis larger than himself is impaled on his 

 sharp teeth and its body sucked dry. But this is 

 merely an appetizer ; he has only to extend his 

 jaws on right or left to secure another similar 



/--j.x^'^f'\ 



