frequently by a pond in Maine. Its abdomen is
unusually short, and the reticulations of the wings are large and
simple. The female is black, while the male is frosted over with a
whitish powder. Many more species of this family are found in this
country, and for descriptions of them we would refer the reader to Dr.
Hagen's "Synopsis of the Neuroptera of North America," published by the
Smithsonian Institution.

[Illustration: 138. Diplax Elisa.]

[Illustration: 139. Nannophya bella.]

[Illustration: 140. May Fly.]

The Libellulidae, or family of Dragon flies, and the Ephemeridae, or May
flies (Fig. 140), are the most characteristic of the Neuroptera, or
veiny-winged insects. This group is a most interesting one to the
systematist, as it is composed of so many heterogeneous forms which it
is almost impossible to classify in our rigid and at present necessarily
artificial systems. We divide them into families and sub-families,
genera and sub-genera, species and varieties, but there is an endless
shifting of characters in these groups. The different groups would seem
well limited after studying certain forms, when to the systematist's
sorrow, here comes a creature, perhaps mimicking an ant, or aphis, or
other sort of bug, or even a butterfly, and for which they would be
readily mistaken by the uninitiated. Bibliographers have gone mad over
books that could not be classified. Imagine the despair of an
insect-hunter and entomophile, as he sits down to his box of dried
neuroptera. He seeks for a true neuropter in the white ant before him,
but its very form and habits summon up a swarm of true ants; and then
the little wingless book louse (Atropos, Fig. 141) scampering
irreverently over the musty pages of his Systema Naturae, reminds him of
that closest friend of man--Pediculus vestimenti. Again, his studies
lead him to that gorgeous inhabitant of the South, the butterfly-like
Ascalaphus, with its resplendent wings, and slender, knobbed antennae so
much like those of butterflies, and visions of these beautiful insects
fill his mind's eye; or sundry dun-colored caddis flies, modest,
delicate neuroptera, with finely fringed wings and slender feelers,
create doubts as to whether they are not really allies of the clothes
moth, so close is the resemblance.

[Illustration: 141. Death Tick.]

Thus the student is constantly led astray by the wanton freaks Nature
plays, and becomes sceptical as regards the truth of a natural sys