228 Nerve-winged Insects; Scorpion-flies; Caddis-flies 
part of the summer; here the larva changes to a pupa. In about a month 
after the larva leaves the water the adult insect appears. The eggs are 
then soon laid; these are attached to stones or other objects overhanging 
the water. They are laid in blotch-like masses which are chalky-white 
in color and measure from half an inch to nearly an inch in diameter. A 
single mass contains from two thousand to three thousand eggs. When 
the larvse hatch they at once find their way into the water, where they 
remain until full-grown.” 
In the Kansas corn-fields I used to find certain wonderfully beautiful, 
frail, gauzy-winged insects resting or walking slowly about on the great 
smooth green leaves. The eyes of these insects shone like burnished copper 
or shining gold, and this with the fresh clear green (tinged sometimes with 
bluish, sometimes with yellowish) of the lace-like wings and soft body made 
me think them the most beautiful of all the insects I could find. But a 
nearer acquaintanceship was always unpleasant; when “collected” they 
emitted such a disagreeable odor that admiration changed to disgust. These 
lace-winged or golden-eyed flies are common all over the country and com¬ 
pose a family of Neuroptera 
called Chrysopidae. All except 
two species of the family belong 
to the single genus Chrysopa, 
which includes more than thirty 
species found in the United 
States. In the Chrysopidae the 
larvae are not aquatic as in the 
family Sialidae, but are active 
and fiercely predaceous little 
creatures called aphis-lions, that 
crawl about over herbage and 
shrubbery in search of living 
aphids (plant-lice) and other 
small soft-bodied insects. The 
aphis-lion (Fig. 314) has a pair 
of long, sharp-pointed, slender 
jaws which are grooved on the 
inner face. Having found a 
Fig. 314.—The golden-eyed or lace-winged fly, 
Chrysopa sp.; adult, eggs, larva, “aphis-lion,” 
and pupal cocoons on the under side of leaf. 
(Natural size.) 
plant-louse it pierces its body with the sharp jaw-points, and holds it up, so 
that the blood of its victim runs along these grooves into its thirsty throat. 
The Chrysopa larvas will bravely attack insects larger than themselves, or will 
quite as readily prey on the defenceless eggs of neighbor insects, or indeed of 
their own kind. Indeed, probably because of this egg-sucking habit the female 
lace-winged fly deposits her eggs each on the tip of a tiny slender stem, about 
