THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST 31 
not appear to be any proper mouth opening. The proper 
sucking organs seem to be situated at the base of the in- 
ner lobe, and they thrust this lobe backwards and for- 
wards in the outer cavity with lightning rapidity, each 
time bringing back with it a portion of the juice of the 
victim until there appears to be nothing but the skin left. 
The other appendages of the head are a pair of twelve 
jointed Antenne, and a pair of five jointed labial Palps. 
T have not noticed any Maxillar Palps. The gait of the 
insect is clumsy, and though it walks forwards when calm, 
when frightened or excited it prefers to go backwards. 
The pupal case is a round silken cocoon of thin texture, and 
of a white glassey appearance. It is about the size of a 
small pea, and is slightly flattened on the sides. It is 
generally found in a dark, sheltered place, under the bark 
of trees. The food of the larve consists chiefly of small 
larvee. When the parent insect first bursts from the co- 
coon and emerges, it does not leave its moult skin in the 
shell like the Antlion, but comes out in a sort of nymph 
form, and crawls about for some time. It then fastens on 
to an object with the abdominal appendages, the skin 
bursts at the back of the neck, and by a succession of wrig- 
gles and twists, the moult skin is cast off. After this it 
often takes five or six minutes before the wings are pro- 
perly expanded. The first specimen I bred was from a 
larva taken by Mr. J. Blake, or Narara. This was taken 
as a full-grown larva in March, 1911. After keeping it 
till December 11th, 1911, it spun its cocoon in the box, and 
on January 16th, 1912, it hatched. Since then I have 
been able to find the larve in a good many different lo- 
calities, and within the last two years have been able to 
successfully breed about two dozen specimens. I also got 
some of the females to lay fertilised eggs in captivity, and 
reared the larvee to over half-grown. In 1904 I caught 
one of these Psychops in the parent stage at Kenthurst. 
This one laid over 50 eggs, some of which I hatched and 
developed to about. one-third grown, when they perished. 
In the larvee stage these insects are highly cannibalistic, 
and therefore cannot be kept together. The following 
notes on specimens bred in captivity will give an idea ag 
to the range and life history of these insects :— 
Twelve specimens of P. Newmani, which pupated in 
captivity, took from 38 to 53 days before hatching. Most 
of these died within a day, but three specimens lived for 
about 22, 28, and 33 days respectively. 
