779 
No. 145.] 
destroyed, when, having fully glutted his appetite, he retired into 
a corner of the vial to repose. This larva pertained to the 
species hereinafter described under the name of the New-York 
golden-eye. 
It is thus evident that many of the species of this family of in¬ 
sects, contrary to what has been heretofore published, when first 
hatched are too feeble and timorous to attack plant-lice or any 
other living prey, and subsist during the first stages of their lives 
upon the eggs of insects. By destroying these eggs they are often 
as beneficial to us, probably, as they would be if aphides were 
their sole food. The aphis-lion, however, is perfectly indiscrimi¬ 
nate in his appetite, consuming the eggs of beneficial as well as 
injurious insects, and we now learn why it is that the parent of 
these insects places her eggs upon thread-like pedicels, whereby 
they are elevated from the surface of the leaves. Hitherto it has 
been unknown why this insect deposits her eggs in this singular 
manner. By a reference to that mine of information upon all 
subjects of this kind, Westwood’s Introduction, (vol. ii. p 47,) 
we find it merely stated that these eggs have been supposed to be 
placed in this manner to protect them from the attacks of para¬ 
sites. But we see not why a parasitic insect may not alight upon 
and puncture and drop its eggs within these eggs almost as readi¬ 
ly as it could do if they were placed upon the surface of the leaf. 
Certainly many of these parasitic insects display far more sagacity 
than this would be in discovering the appropriate receptacle for 
their eggs. But speculation upon this subject is no longer neces 
sary when we have facts to guide us to a conclusion. In a recent 
communication to the Country Gentleman, which is not yet pub 
lished, (No. 5 of my series of entomological articles in that peri¬ 
odical,) I suggested that these eggs are elevated upon pedicels to 
prevent their being found by the young larvae of their own kind, 
which probably would instantly devour them if they were laid 
upon the surface of the leaves. To ascertain more fully the cor 
rectness of this opinion, I sought an egg which was upon the point 
of hatching, and placed it in a vial; the next day a young aphis 
lion was found disclosed from this egg. Two freshly laid eggs 
were now obtained; one of these was placed in the vial elevated 
