780 [Assembly 
upon its pedicel, the other was laid upon the surface of a leaf in 
the vial. Next morning the latter was found flattened, and with 
only a small portion of fluid remaining in one end, and the plump 
size and green tinge of the young larva showed plainly that he 
had appropriated the missing contents of this egg to himself, and 
in a short time he approached the egg and inserting his jaws into 
it wholly exhausted it of its remaining contents under my eye. 
We thus see that the young aphis-lion will devour the eggs of its 
own species if they are placed within its reach. Is it not won¬ 
derful that the female knows this fact when no other insect pos¬ 
sesses this knowledge! It would seem as though she had a re¬ 
collection of what her own habits were in the larva period of her 
life, else why does not instinct inform other insects of this same 
fact, and excite them to similar artifices for placing their eggs be¬ 
yond the reach of these destroyers ? . 
A cocoon of spider’s eggs was now introduced into the vial last 
spoken of, upon which the aphis-lion therein became plump and 
well fed. Three days after this the other egg elevated upon its 
pedicel, having been wholly undisturbed, hatched, and the infant 
larva from it approaching the older one, which was full three 
times its size, the latter to my astonishment passively and with¬ 
out manfesting the slightest resentment, permitted the newly- 
born infant to pierce him repeatedly with its jaws until life was 
extinct. His carcase was then shoved off’from the leaf and aban¬ 
doned, little if any of the juices being sucked from it. I can only 
account for this strange phenomenon—the young and weak de¬ 
stroying the strong—by supposing there had been some poisonous 
quality in the spider’s eggs on which the older aphis-lion had fed, 
which had rendered him diseased and weary of life, for he even 
seemed to solict his pigmy kinsman to slay him. Our American 
species, however, appear to be less inclined to cannibalism than 
those of Europe, this being the only instance in which I have 
known one to destroy another, and for several days I have had a 
Chrysopa and a much larger Hemerobius larva enclosed together 
and left at times without food, yet they have manifested no incli¬ 
nation to molest each other. 
