NEUROPTERA. l8l 



sometimes called Golden-eyes, and sometimes, a Lace-winged- 

 fly, from its appearance. The Lace-wing is a prudent 

 mother ; she knows that if she lays her eggs together on a 

 leaf the first Aphis-lion that hatches will eat for his first 

 meal all his unhatched brothers and sisters. She guards 

 against this fratricide by laying each ^^^ on the top of a 

 stiff stalk of hard silk about half an inch high. Groups of 

 these eggs are very pretty, looking like a tiny forest of 

 white stems bearing on their summits round glistening fruit. 

 When the first of the brood hatches, he scrambles down as 

 best he can from his ^^^ perch to the surface of the leaf, 

 and runs off, quite unconscious that the rest of his family 

 are reposing in peace high above his head. 



The mouth-parts of these larvae are very unusual in 

 form. The mandibles are very long ; on the lower side of 

 each of them there is a fur^'^w the entire length; into this 

 furrow the long and slena^. maxilla fits. In this way the 

 mandible and the maxilla of each side form a tube, through 

 which the blood of the prey of the insect can be drawn. 

 This explains why an Aphis-lion holds its prey on the tips 

 of its long jaws, at arm's length, as it were, while sucking 

 its blood. 



Nearly all of the members of this family belong to the 

 genus Chrysopa (Chry-so^pa). 



Family Hemerobiid^ (Hem-e-ro-bi'i-dse). 

 The Hemerobiaiis (^Hem-e-ro' bi-ans). 



The common members of this family are rather dark- 

 colored insects, with the wings mottled with dark brown or 

 smoky specks, and with some of the veins between the costa 

 and subcosta forked. 



The most conspicuous member of the family is Polys- 

 toechotes pimctattis (Pol-ys-toech^o-tes punc-ta'tus), which is 

 represented natural size by Figure 220. The larva is 

 unknown. 



