230* Nerve-winged Insects; Scorpion-flies; Caddis-flies 
lights. Its body is blackish, and the wings are clear but mottled with irreg¬ 
ular brownish-black spots. When at rest the wings are held steeply roof¬ 
like over the back. Nothing is known of its life-history. Of the best-known 
genus, Hemerobius (Fig. 317), twenty species have been noted in this country, 
but they are small, dull-colored insects, and are rather rare, or at least 
infrequently seen. Comstock says they occur in forests and especially on 
coniferous trees. The larvae are like the Chrysopa larvae, predaceous and 
well equipped with big strong head and sharp, curved seizing and blood¬ 
sucking mouth-parts. The larvae (Fig. 318) of some species have the 
curious habit of piling up on their back the empty, shriveled skins of their 
victims, until the aphis-lion is itself almost wholly concealed by this unlovely 
load of relicts. This is true of all the Hemerobius larvae I have seen in 
California. Stripped of the covering of skins the aphis-lion is seen to have 
a short, broad, flattened body, with numerous long, spiny hairs arising from 
tubercles. These hairs help to hold the mass of insect skins together. 
Still other Neuroptera with fierce, ever-hungry, carnivorous larvae are 
the ant-lions, or Myrmeleonidae. The horrible pit of Kipling’s story, into 
Fig. 318. Fig. 319. Fig. 320. 
Fig. 318. —Larva of Hemerobius sp. covered with detritus. (From life; four times natural 
size.) 
Fig. 319. —Larva of ant-lion, Myrmeleon sp. (Three times natural size.) 
Fig. 320. —Pit of ant-lion and, in lower right-hand corner, pupal sand-cocoon, from 
which adult has issued, of ant-lion, Myrmeleon sp. (About natural size.) 
which Morrowbie Jukes rode one night, is paralleled in fact in that lesser 
world of insect life under our feet. The foraging ant, too intent on bringing 
home a rich spoil for the hungry workers in the crowded nest to watch care¬ 
fully for dangers in its path, finds itself without warning on the crumbling 
