NOTES ON THE MYMARIDjE. 
161 
walks abroad on the panes of a greenhouse, which is one of 
the best places to look for these “Fairy Flies,” and I would 
recommend some of those “ arm-chair collectors,” who 
cannot possibly take so much exertion as is necessary to bend 
their back or legs to run after an insect, to take their seat 
at the end of the greenhouse, and if not too lazy to raise 
their eyes they will, in the course of an hour or two, see 
enough insect life on the glass to occupy their thoughts for a 
long time. But I am wandering away from Camptoptera, 
which is one of the most gracefully built of all the Mymarid®, 
the head, thorax, and abdomen being beautifully shaped, the 
wings too are arched in a line of beauty and grace with long- 
fringes of hair or set® on the margins, and its step is indeed 
light as a fairy. 
Comnocoma contains some of the largest species of the 
family, the wings paddle shaped with long set® especially 
along the outer margin, and one, the name of which I am 
unable to certify, has these long set® on both sides of the 
upper wings as well as along the margins, thus resembling a 
bottle brush. Gonatocerus and Ooctonus are about the plainest 
fairies, but nevertheless beautiful. 
Litas, when seen crawling up the glass, looks much like a 
very minute flea ; it has a decidedly heavy body, but the 
wings are very narrow and delicately fringed. I have left 
My mar pulchellus until last, as it is one of the most extra¬ 
ordinary insects I have ever met with, the anterior wings are 
almost the exact shape of a battledore or lawn tennis bat, the 
posterior being but short bristles, with a few booklets which 
hook into the groove in the anterior wings, and when this 
insect is examined under the microscope we cannot help 
being struck with the marvellous arrangement of this under 
wing which so supports and “ties in” the long rib of the 
anterior one, thus preventing it from unduly bending. 
I have often been asked “ Where do you get these things 
from,” and I can only add that they are to be found almost 
everywhere if looked for ; since I have devoted some little 
time to the study of them, I am almost afraid to tread upon 
a lawn, knowing that each step taken crushes the life out of 
many of these most marvellous atoms, for no doubt a great 
many are parasitic upon the various dipterous and other 
larv® feeding in the stems and upon grasses and other low 
herbage, whilst others keep down the swarms of Aphides. 
Still more wonderful, some of them search for the eggs of 
Lepidoptera, which they pierce with their minute ovipositor, 
then transmit one egg or more of their own, the young larv® 
feeding upon the fluids contained in the butterfly’s egg until 
