. Report on the injurious and other insects of the State of New York. , their powers foreither good or evil are limited by the surroundings. In the larvalstate they are most probably predaceous and may aid in keeping someof the smaller injurious insects in check. In the imago state the evi-dence of the predaceous habits of Panorpa, the typical scorpion-fly,is not so clear as one might desire^ yet there is nothing to prove itiijurious. The scorpion-flies, together with the closely-related genus Bittacusand a few other allied forms, were long included in the old order Neu-roptera. Within recent
. Report on the injurious and other insects of the State of New York. , their powers foreither good or evil are limited by the surroundings. In the larvalstate they are most probably predaceous and may aid in keeping someof the smaller injurious insects in check. In the imago state the evi-dence of the predaceous habits of Panorpa, the typical scorpion-fly,is not so clear as one might desire^ yet there is nothing to prove itiijurious. The scorpion-flies, together with the closely-related genus Bittacusand a few other allied forms, were long included in the old order Neu-roptera. Within recent years some authors have assigned these insectsto a separate order, the Mecoptera, which is placed between the nowmore limited order Neuroptera and the Lepidoptera. The Mecoptera. Fig. 23.—Venation of Panorpa rufksckns. The homology of the veins was determined by Prof. J. H. Comstock are distinguished by possessing four numerously veined membraneous?wings (Fig. 23); the head is prolonged into a beak; metamorphosis 464 FOKTT-EIGETn KEPOKT ON THE STATE MUSEUM complete. The enlarged forceps-like appendages of the male Panorpahas led to the popular name of Scorpion-fly for members of this genus(Pis. iii, iv, fig. 12), and it appears that some authors inclade the genusBittacus under the term scorpion-flies, though the male appendageshave no likeness to those of a scorpion. This is due, most probably,to the lack of a more appropriate common name. Up till 1863 almostnothing was known concerning the life-history of these insects, but,thanks to the most excellent work of Brauer,* the student of the orderneed no longer labor in the dark. I have failed to find any importantcontribution to our knowledge of the habits of these insects since histime, and nothing in this
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectbenefic, bookyear1882
