Family 2, Æguipalpia.—This family constitutes a second group, and also contains many species, many of them, however, being very minute insects, some hardly one-eighth of an inch across the wings. They make little cases of silk resembling seeds, to the outer surface of which they attach grains of sand, etc.
The Æguipalpia contains four sub-families—viz., Leptoceridæ, Hydropsychidæ, Rhyacophilidæ, and Hydroptilidæ.
Of the Leptoceridæ, Molanna augustata may be taken as a typical example, the larva of which lives on the sandy bottom of pools, and is very difficult to detect.
Sub-Order 3.—Pseudo-neuroptera.
In the third sub-order of the Neuroptera are grouped together a series of insects which present great divergences of character, and really do not belong to the true Neuroptera on account of their incomplete metamorphoses. They, however, for the most part, resemble the Neuroptera in the structure of their wings.
They are divided into several tribes and many families.
Tribe I.—Ornoptera or Dragon Flies.
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.
Their habits are very much alike. The insect passes all the earlier stages of its existence in water. The larvæ are most voracious creatures, and are undoubtedly the most predaceous of insects. The apparatus by which they capture their prey consists of a peculiar modification of the labium.