MAY- FLY CHANGES. 153 



object intended to exist but for so short a space. " It's almost 

 a pity ! It's scarcely worth the while !" are phrases which, 

 rising to our lips, are checked only by the monstrous unfit- 

 ness of applying them to the works of an infinite Being, with 

 whom to will is to create, and to whom a day is as a thousand 

 years, a thousand years as a day. 



Maternal instinct, wonderfully guided by Paternal Provi- 

 dence, directs each parent May-fly (heedless sporter as she 

 seems) to drop her eggs into the water while she hovers above 

 its surface. From each of these issues, in due time, a wingless 

 six-legged grub, 1 which bears no resemblance to the perfect 

 insect, except, perhaps, in the triple appendage of bristles 

 issuing from the tail. The first care and labour of the larva's 

 life is to excavate for its habitation, within the soft bank of 

 the river, a hole or burrow, proportioned to its size, and below 

 the level of the water, of which it is consequently always full. 

 This cavernous abode serves the double purpose of protecting 

 it from the jaws of its finny foes, and of providing it with a 

 ready supply of that slimy earth on which it is supposed chiefly 

 to subsist. 2 



In the above sub-merged, subterranean, sunless and earth- 

 eating existence the streams of life and of its native current 

 glide for four and twenty successive moons over the head of 

 our as yet misnamed Ephemera, which, during the latter part 

 of the same period, exchanges the first (or Larva) for the 

 second (or Pupa) state of insect life. It is then that on some 

 fine May morning (or may be evening) it bids adieu for ever 

 to its dark subaqueous dwelling, and rises to the surface, pre- 

 pared to enter on its third estate. 



Having burst from the Pupa skin, which is left behind as 

 the badge and bandage of an inferior and confined condition, 

 it quits, in company with numerous fellows, the water for the 

 air, in the shape, to all appearance, of a perfect fly. As if, 



1 Vignette. 8 See Insect Architecture, p. 206. 



