APPLE LEAVES, APHIS LIONS — DESCRIPTION. 79 



and parallel, the abdomen tapering. It is white, with two dusky stripes upon the 

 head, and the outer side of its long sickle-shaped jaws is blackish. Its back is at this 

 time clothed with numerous long fine hairs. It walks about with an easy, sedate 

 step, making very good progress, and could readily crawl down a tall |,ree and pro- 

 bably travel some distance therefrom before it has taken any noitrishment. When 

 full grown it is about 0.30 long, broadest in the middle and tapering, thence to both 

 ends, but more posteriorly ; its color is reddish brown, paler in the middle of the 

 back, with a narrow darker stripe the whole length of its body. It presents numerous 

 transverse impressed lines above, those at the sutures being more conspicuous. The 

 Sides of each segment are cream-yellow and protuberant, forming elevated points, 

 with short diverging white hairs at the apex. Under side pale. Head pale with two 

 blackish stripes which taper and diverge from each other anteriorly. The antennje 

 are about as long as the jaws, slender and taperjpg, without any apparent joints. The 

 jaws are tinged with dusky. The legs are pale and somewhat translucent, with a 

 dusky band above and another below the knees ; the feet are also dusky. The twelfth 

 and thirteenth, or the two last segments are quite narrow and destitute of tubercles 

 tipped with radiating hairs on each side, but have two black stripes on their upper 

 aide. They form a kind of tail turning in every direction, and by the tip of the last 

 segment the insect adheres, particularly to smooth surfaces like glass, much more 

 securely than it can do with its feet. This adhesion appears to be effected by k power 

 of suction in this part. 



The larvEe of the other species of Chrysopa appear to be similar to the one which 

 has now been described. One of them, however, has fallen under my notice, having 

 the whole surface above mottled»with light yellow and brownish red, with a slender 

 black line on the middle of the back, having a reddish spot upon it in the centre of 

 each segment, and the head with two black spots on its base and a black stripe ante- 

 riorly upon the middle. The sfecies which is produced from this I have not yet 

 ascertained. 



Having attained its growth, the aphis-lion for its final meal 

 gluts itself as full as its skin can hold. Tor two days afterwards 

 it remains torpid and inactive, as though- sick of a surfeit. It 

 then commences spinning its cocoon. This operation is performed 

 by its tail, which is supplied with a glutinous fluid similar to thai 

 from which the spider spins its web, which adheres to whatever 

 point it is applied, and hardens immediately upon exposure to the 

 air. The amount of life and motion which the tail possesses at 

 this time, when all the rest of the body is lying still and unem- 

 ployed, is truly astonishing. Like the head of a leech it con- 

 tracts, elongates and turns from side to side and up and down 

 with the vivacity of the hand of a musician beating upon a tam- 

 bourine, attaching its thread here and there as it darts around 

 from point to point. By the New- York golden-eye scattering 

 threads are first fixed around the hollow in the bark or elsewhere 



