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Read Ebook: The Young Collector's Handbook of Ants Bees Dragon-flies Earwigs Crickets and Flies (Hymenoptera Neuroptera Orthoptera Hemiptera Diptera). by Bath W Harcourt William Harcourt
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Ebook has 230 lines and 22447 words, and 5 pages
The insects belonging to the third tribe of the Hymenoptera are strictly vegetable feeders. There are only two families.
The best-known European species which is common in some parts of Britain is the great Tailed Wasp , a very formidable-looking insect, of which the female often measures nearly an inch and a half in length.
The general tint is black with the antennae, the sides of the thorax and the legs and apex of the abdomen yellow. This insect lives in pine and fir woods, and the female deposits her eggs in the woody parts of the trees, into which she bores to a depth of over half an inch by means of her long ovipositor.
Many other species live on different kinds of plants and trees.
ORDER NEUROPTERA.
INCLUDING THE DRAGON FLIES, LACEWING FLIES, DAY FLIES, STONE FLIES, CADDIS FLIES, AND THEIR ALLIES.
Metamorphoses complete, larvae, mostly terrestrial.
Metamorphoses complete, larvae aquatic. Wings of Imago clothed with hairs.
Metamorphoses incomplete.
The most important distinction between the first two groups and the third is that the former undergo complete metamorphoses, whereas in the latter the transformations are incomplete or imperfect. The latter for this reason are often classified as a separate order.
TABULAR VIEW
OF THE
PRINCIPAL FAMILIES OF THE NEUROPTERA.
Family 1. Myrmeleontidae or Ant Lions. Family 2. Hemerobiidae or Lacewing Flies. Family 3. Mantispidae or Mantis Flies. Family 4. Sialidae or Sialis Flies. Family 5. Raphiidae or Snake Flies. Family 6. Panorpidae or Scorpion Flies.
Family 1. Inaequipalpia or Large Caddis Flies.
Sub-family 1. Phryganeidae. Sub-family 2. Limnophilidae. Sub-family 3. Sericostomidae.
Family 2. AEquipalpia or Little Caddis Flies.
Sub-family 1. Leptoceridae. Sub-family 2. Hydropsychidae. Sub-family 3. Rhyacophilidae. Sub-family 4. Hydroptilidae.
Family 1. Libellulinae or Great Dragon Flies.
Sub-family 1. Libellulidae or Libellulines. Sub-family 2. Cordulidae or Cordulines. Sub-family 3. AEschnidae or AEschnines. Sub-family 4. Gomphidae or Gomphines.
Family 2. Agroninae or Slender Dragon Flies.
Sub-family 1. Agronidae or Agronines. Sub-family 2. Calopterygidae or Calopterygines.
Family 3. Ephemeridae or Day Flies.
Family 4. Perlidae or Stone Flies.
Family 5. Psocidae or Book Mites. Family 6. Embiidae or Agile Mites.
Family 7. Termitiae or White Ants.
Family 8. Tubulifera. Family 9. Terebrantia.
Family 10. Philopteridae. Family 11. Liotheidae.
Family 12. Lepismidae. Family 13. Campodeidae. Family 14. Japygidae.
Family 15. Smynthuridae. Family 16. Papyriidae. Family 17. Degeeriadae. Family 18. Poduridae. Family 19. Amouridae.
SUB-ORDER 1.--PLANIPENNIA.
Other species of ant lions are known to occur on the continent of Europe, but none hitherto have been discovered to inhabit this country.
SUB-ORDER 2.--TRICHOPTERA.
The members of this group are the insects commonly known as Caddis Flies, and they are often ranked as a separate order by entomological writers.
The caddis flies may be divided into two families, though the distinguishing marks are so minute that they really ought to be classified as one family only. To Mr. McLachlan we owe many thanks for his researches in this group of insects.
SUB-ORDER 3.--PSEUDO-NEUROPTERA.
They are divided into several tribes and many families.
To this tribe belong the Dragon Flies, the largest and most beautiful members of the whole order.
About 1,500 species have been described from various parts of the world, and of these about fifty are known to inhabit our own country.
The perfect insect may be seen hawking about for insects in the neighbourhood of pools in all fine weather during the summer and autumn months. In dull weather, however, they usually remain at rest on the leaves of plants and trees, etc. The eyes of Dragon Flies are most beautiful objects when viewed under the microscope; they are composed of a great number of facets or lenses. In one species of Dragon Fly as many as 10,000 of these facets have been counted in each of its eyes.
It is commonly thought by persons who are not naturalists that dragon flies sting; such an erroneous idea we take the opportunity to correct.
It may be seen almost everywhere, hawking for flies about rivers and ponds, during warm weather.
This tribe contains two families, one of which is represented in the British Isles.
They are also very destructive to collections of preserved insects and plants. About thirty species occur in this country.
They are a very remarkable family of insects. They build most complicated dwellings, consisting of innumerable galleries and chambers, and they are so interesting in their habits that every traveller who has seen anything of them has always a great deal to relate concerning them.
These insects, which are known as "Bird Lice," were formerly placed among the true lice, but they differ in the possession of biting mouths, and in the diet to which such a structure adapts them.
A great number of these curious little insects have been recorded, and they inhabit all parts of the world. They live among the feathers of birds and the hairs of mammalia.
Almost every animal and bird is subject to these parasites.
The common fowl, duck, goose, game birds of all kinds, and pigeons, are very commonly infested by them, as are also the dog, the cat, the sheep, and the guinea-pig.
The forms composed in this tribe of insects are reckoned at present to be the nearest resemblance to the theoretical progenitors of the insects; in fact, Sir John Lubbock hints that they might well be regarded not as insects at all, but rather as the surviving representatives of a group formed by the ancestors of the whole multitude of insect types.
The food of these creatures consists of decayed vegetable matter.
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