WHIRLIGIGS. 87 



others trying to poke their way in to the centre 

 of attraction. I do hope that boy killed the 

 flies before giving them to the beetles. Had I 

 known the habits of Whirligigs as well then as I 

 do now I should have entreated him to be sure 

 that the flies were dead. Not that I am an ad- 

 mirer of the fly. On the contrary, I abhor him. 

 But one does not like to see him killed by par- 

 ticles. 



Just about the time when Whirligigs first 

 begin to be plentiful in the spring, the last of 

 March, there will come up in one's dredger what 

 look like bits of dry tree-twigs. They are five 

 eighths of an inch 

 long, or thereabouts, 

 composed of eight 

 segments looking like 

 the divisions of a 



twig. But put these Pupa3 of TipulidoBt 



sticks into water, and 

 they will float perpendicularly, not horizontally 

 after the manner of real sticks, and one will no- 

 tice that from the part that is uppermost there 

 stand out two little projections. Some day when 

 you are looking at these " twigs " one of them 

 will give a kick, and the next morning, when you 

 go out to look at the bottle, you will find the twig 

 with a hole in the upper part of it, and in the 

 upper portion of the bottle, holding itself above 

 water-line, will be a long-legged fly. This fly 



