LIBRARY

NEUROPTERA 383
admirably endowed with a tough, elastic, and sometimes spiny skin; short,
stout legs terminating in a pair of strong claws; and a long trumpet-shaped empodium;
long, sharp, sickle-shaped mandibles and maxillre; an insatiable appetite
and a fearless instinct. They stalk their prey, chiefly living aphids, from
which they get the name "aphis lions," but they also devour leafhoppers, psyIlids,
scale insects, mites, and young spiders and eggs and smalllarvre of moths,
of butterflies, of beetles, and of sawflies; - in fact almost any minute animal
that can be dispatched with their pincer-like jaws. The body of the victim is
pierced and the juices quickly extracted.
In some species, for instance Chrysopa lz'neatz'cornis Fitch of North America
and C. ciliata Wesmael of Europe, the larvre are protected by a disk-like shield
FIG. 134. Eggs of the California green lacewing, Cl!rysopa cali/arnica Coquillett. (From
Insects oj Western North America.)
of trash or debris which covers the dorsum, and these are known as trash or
packet carriers. Because they destroy so many insects injurious to plant life
and particularly to food crops and ornamentals they are ranked as highly beneficial
to mankind. When fully grown, the larvre seek secluded places under
scaly bark of trees or elsewhere and spin oval or spherical, tough, closely
woven, smooth cocoons, which are pearl-like and often mistaken for insect
eggs.
The CHRYSOPIDJE comprise a large family of some 25 genera and 420
species distributed chiefly throughout the temperate regions of the world and
occur on all the large land masses except New Zealand. The dominant genus,
Chrysopa Leach, is cosmopolitan and is very well known wherever it occurs. In
Europe there are at least 15 species (two genera and 14 species inhabit Great
Britain) including the common C. vulgaris (Linn.). C. perla (Linn.), C. vittata
Wesmael, C. ciliata Wesmael, C, carnea Stephens, C. dorsalis Burmeister, and
C. flava (Scopoli). Of the 12 or more North American species, C. oculata Say,
C. interrupta Schneider, C. ploralJunda Fitch, and C. nigricornis Bunn. are important
east of the Rocky Mountains and C. rufilabris Burm., C. caloradensis
Banks, and C. califarnica Coquillett are common in the West. In Australia