PHRYGANE^E. 153 



continuing their races brings them to the water that 

 they may there deposit their eggs, and that when the 

 ends of their being are accomplished, their bodies may 

 not be lost, but serve as food for those inhabitants of 

 the water, which in their turn serve as food for each 

 other, for fishing birds and quadrupeds, and for man. 



Water-flies are of many genera and species ; and 

 many flies which do not naturally breed in water, and 

 also beetles, are blown upon the water by accident, 

 and supply food for fish. 



The water-flies, properly so called, that are most 

 abundant on trouting streams and other waters that are 

 shaded and sheltered by trees, may be reduced to three 

 leading genera : 



Phryganece, or water-moths ; 



Ephemerae, or day-flies ; and 



Tipulce, or crane-flies, though the latter are rather 

 meadow-flies than water ones, as most of the 

 species deposit their eggs in the earth, in fun- 

 gous plants and other substances on land, and 

 not in the water. 



The PHRYGANE^B include all the species of water- 

 flies that have very long antennce, or feelers, besides 

 four wings, which, when they are at rest, they fold 

 over their bodies in the same manner as moths. Their 

 wings, however, want that exquisite powdery plumage 

 which characterises the wings of the moths, properly 

 so called. They belong to the Linnaean order of Neu- 

 roptera, or nerve-winged insects, the wings consisting 

 of a fine membrane spread upon a nervous tissue 

 resembling that in the leaves of plants. These flies 



