THK HOME OF THE BLACK-FIA'. 83 



the water, and grows to be a big, clums}-, rolling, crawling 

 creature, more than an inch long and nearly as big round 

 as a lead pencil. 



Under the stones are the sprawling nj-mphs of the stone- 

 flies, which seem never to be doing anything or to have 

 anything to do; while in the brook- weed are countless 

 larvae of the caddis-flies — some in C3dindrical stone cases 

 that can be moved about ; some in little houses made of 

 grains of sand, fastened together and to a stone with silk ; 

 some in tubes of silk and sand, with a net of silk near the 

 mouth, which serves as a trap to catch whatever the swift- 

 ly running water may bring along. 



There are many other kinds of insects and small water 

 creatures crowding and fighting and eating one another in 



these rapids, but the most numer- 

 ous of all are the larvae of the 

 black-flies. The black-fly is so 

 abundant here that it drives the 

 fisherman out of the woods, tor- 

 /^^^^^^^^\^\, ments the cattle in the pasture, 

 /J^^^^^^^^^^siXWy and pesters the farmer in the field. 



After making a nuisance of itself, 

 it lays hundreds of eggs at the 

 edge of the brook, just where the 

 ripples wash back and forth 

 upon a rock. Many a time, when 

 watching the black-flies deposit- 

 ing their eggs, I have seen a big crane-fly bobbing up and 

 down, touching the tip of its abdomen in. the water. It 

 was laying eggs, too, for it was a wise old crane-fly, and 

 knew that by the time its eggs were hatched there would 

 be plenty of black -fly larvae for the larvae of the crane-fly 

 to feed upon. 



Millions on millions of these tiny black-fl)' larvae hatch 

 from the countless eggs, crowd upon the stones in the rap- 



TIIK FAN. 



