SINGULAR ESCAPE. 



295 



Caddis-fly's Legs magniflei 

 Hairs. 



face, even now? Its legs, as will be seen by looking 

 at the cut, are furnished with a number of hair-like 

 processes, which assist it 

 in swimming; it therefore, 

 still enclosed in the water- 

 proof coat the pupa skin 

 strikes upwards to the 

 surface, and reaching it, 

 its skin splits, its imper- 

 vious raiment is cast aside, 

 and the insect springs from 

 the surface into the air without the minutest 

 drop of water to impede her flight, or injure the 

 delicate tissue of her wings ! 



We may take another common insect for an 

 illustration of this mode of escape from the pupa, 

 of an equally interesting kind. If the reader will 

 on some fine summer day resort to any place of 

 standing water by the road-side, he may probably 

 succeed in discovering the emergence of a number 

 of gnats ; and a very amusing occupation it is to 

 stand by and watch the insect, this moment an 

 occupant of the waters, and the next darting in 

 the air, a new and air-breathing form of existence! 

 About ten days after the gnat has become pupa, it 



