60 FISHING GOSSIP. 



of the soul after bodily death, than the representation 

 of an animal which, first a voracious, unseemly, 

 ground-crawling grub, next falls into a state of com- 

 plete torpitude, and then, casting off its temporary 

 slough, becomes a light, lively, beautiful winged crea- 

 ture of the air. 



The May-fly passes through a somewhat similar 

 series of developments to those just attributed to 

 the lepidopterous insects, but with the important 

 difference that it undergoes an additional fourth 

 change, which they do not. Instead of at once 

 springing from the pupa* to the imago form, it 

 passes through a short intermediate stage, termed by 

 naturalists the pseudimago, or false image, before it 

 attains to the imago, or perfect insect. Hence arises 

 the confusion between fishermen and entomologists 

 on this question, the former terming the insect in its 

 pseudimago state the green drake, in its imago state 

 the grey drake, and, ignorant of the natural change 

 that takes place, forming erroneous theories such as 

 the one being male, the other female, etc. to account 

 for the slight difference in hue presented by the in- 

 sect in these two states. Dr. Hagen, in the Entomo- 

 logist's Annual for 1863, says, that " Pictel first 



* The pupa of the May-fly does not assume the torpid, mummi- 

 fied, swathed condition, from which the name is actually derived. 

 It has limbs, can crawl and swim, but not fly, and thus comes 

 under the class of pupae termed semicorupleta. 



