350 INSECTS. 



with which they perceive and avoid danger. Who has 

 not watched a company of these creatures maintaining 

 their raerry dance during a shower of rain, without a 

 single individual being caught and dashed to the earth ? 

 It is clear that, as has been said of certain Tipulae also, 

 they dodge the drops of rain ; and we may conceive this 

 necessity as adding greatly to the glee and excitement of 

 their gambols. How clumsy and tame a performance is 

 the boasted " sword dance" in comparison with this ! 



7. PHLEBOTOMID.E, notwithstanding the threatening 

 name, and (8) HETEROCLIT/E, appear to partake of some 

 characters both of the Gnat and the Daddy Longlegs. 

 Some are blood-suckers and others not, and the food and 

 habits of the larvae are various. The genus generally 

 best known is Psychoda (in family 7), which contains 

 only two species. One of these, Psychoda phalenoides 

 (or " Moth-like" Psychoda), a little harmless grey woolly- 

 winged insect, sometimes libellously called a Midge, is 

 commonly to be found on the window-panes and else- 

 where in-doors, especially in winter. It is less than one- 

 twelfth of an inch long, with broad wings, sloping, roof- 

 like, from the back and antenna, which are banded with 

 black and decorated with whorls of hair, and exceedingly 

 beautiful, though not more so tfian hundreds of other 

 species in Nemocera. The Fly runs actively, but is more 

 noticeable for its habit of making sudden hops (produced, 

 however, by wings, not legs) in all unexpected directions. 



The larva is terrestrial, and lives in dung. 



9. Tipulidce. This family contains the "Daddy Long- 

 legs," " Harry Longlegs," or " Craneflies," the largest 

 insects not only in Nemocera, but if length length of 

 body and length of limb is considered, the largest of 

 English Diptera. The Tipulidse are easily to be distin- 



