Caddis-Flies. 



440 



oak-billets that bore specimens of corky fungi. The beetle, which varies 

 a good deal in the matter of size, makes its appearance in June, and 

 in that and the following month may frequently be seen on the flowers 

 and vegetation of the hedgerow. We have two other species, the greater wasp- 

 beetle 1 and the obscure wasp-beetle.- The former is a better representative 

 of the wasp on account of its larger size, but it is a rarer Insect. The 

 third species is much smaller, and has no yellow^ bands, grey taking their place, 

 and on the base of each wing-cover there is a large patch of purple-brown, which 

 has the effect of making the beetli 

 — when seen on a dark background 

 — look like one of the burrowing 

 wasps with a long, slender waist. 

 The pretty mullein-beetle,'"^ shown 

 in one of our photographs, belongs 

 to the same genus, but is not a 

 native, though European. 



It should be added that the 

 coloured bands of the beetles are 

 not due to pigment in the wing- 

 cover itself, but to a layer of 

 scales and hairs arranged upon it, 

 as may easily be seen with the aid 

 of a pocket lens. 



Caddis-Flies. 



Manv a naturalist had his 

 observing faculty first awakened 

 on the margin of a pond or stream. 

 He may have started as a boy 

 catching " tiddlers " with a small 

 net, and would then get interested 

 in the very numerous and varied 

 forms of life that he would bring 

 up with every sweep of his imple- 

 ment. Among these would almost 

 certainly be the grubs of some of 

 the caddis-flies in their remarkable 

 portable houses or " cases," and these in many instances have been taken home 

 and installed in an acpuirium, where their curious forms and the method of building 

 them could be watched. 



It is open to any reader who has access to a pond or stream, large or smafl, 

 to do likewise — collect a number of these caddis-cases, and, placing them in an 

 aquarium, to watch the development of the caddis "worms" into the hairy-winged 

 caddis " flies." These Insects form a natural order"* of their own, characterized 

 by the possession in the final stage of four wings, which are more or less liberally 



1 Clytus arcuatus. ^ q mysticus. * C. verbasci. •" Triclioptera. 



I'holo by\ 



[H. Main, F.E.S. 



C.\ddis-1"ly at Rest. 



The larger species of cacldis-fly are on the win? only at night. During 

 the day they rest on posts and tree-trunks with the wings folded closely to 

 the body and the antenn.-B directed straight in front. Jlo^t of the species 

 are dull coloured, but this is prettily mottled with black and grey. 



