268 INSECTS AT HOME. 



After passing some two years in the preliminary stages, the 

 Ephemera prepares for its change into the perfect form. The 

 pupa leaves ihe water, and almost as soon as it emerges into 

 the open ai", the pupal skin splits, and enables the insect to 

 crawl from within its former envelope. The wings are soon 

 stretched to their utmost, and the insect then flies slowly to 

 some trf e or post where it affixes itself, and appears to rest 

 after its exertions. 



Another change, however, awaits the insect, for this state is 

 only preliminary, and is scientifically called by the name of 

 ' pseudimago,' or false insect. After it has waited for some 

 little time — depending, as far as I can see, on the warmth and 

 dryness of the atmosphere — the skin again splits, and through 

 the aperture the insect emerges, leaving the abandoned skin 

 clinging to the tree, and looking exactly like the living insect. 

 The wings now assume a lighter and more delicate aspect, the 

 filaments at the end of the body increase to nearly twice their 

 former length, and the May-fly launches into tb.e air to taj:e 

 its part in that evening dance with which we are all so familiar, 

 the insects rising and falling almost in the same place for several 

 hoiu's together. Should the reader be an angler, he will 

 recognise in the female pseudimago the ' Grreen Drake,' and in 

 the perfect insect the ' Grey Drake.' The angler only cares 

 for the female insects, because the fish prefer them, laden as they 

 are with eggs, to the males, which have little in them but air. 



The May-fly has not much time in which to enjoy its new 

 phase of existence. As has already been mentioned, it has 

 no mouth, and as it cannot eat, is evidently incapable of any 

 lengthened term of life. It has in fact but one business, 

 namely, to seek a mate, and provide a new generation in place 

 of that which is now passing away. The May-fly seldom lives 

 more than a few hours, and in its natural condition is supposed 

 never to exceed the limits of a single day. The name Ephem- 

 era, which is formed from two Greek words signifying an 

 existence of a day, alludes to this shortness of life, and was 

 given to the insect as long ago as the time of Aristotle. 

 Isolated specimens have certainly lived longer than this brief 

 term, for they have been known to live more than a week in 

 captivity. Had they, however, been at liberty, it is most pro- 

 bable, if not certain, that their lives would have been as short 

 as is mostly the case with the May-flies. 



