783 
No. 145.] 
and parallel, the abdomen tapering. It is white, with two dusky stripes upon the 
head, and the outer side of itslong 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 tree and pro¬ 
bably travel some distance therefrom before it has taken any nourishment. When 
full grown it is about 0.30 long, broadest in tho middle and tapering thence to both 
ends, but more posteriorly; its color is reddish brown, paler in the middle of tho 
back, with a narrow darker stripe the whole length of its body. It presents numerous 
transverse impressed lines abeve, 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. Underside pale. Head pale with two 
blackish stripes which taper and diverge from each other anteriorly. The antenna; 
are about as long as the jaws, slender and tapering, 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 havo two black stripes on their upper 
side. 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 a power 
of suction in this part. 
The larva: of tho 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 centro of 
each segment, and the head with two black spots on its base and a black stripe ante¬ 
riorly upon the middle. The species 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. For 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 that 
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 
