78 NATURAL HISTORY. 



abounds almost everywhere in stagnant water, is worm-like and of a blood-red colour ; it is, in fact, 

 the animal known to anglers as a bait under the name of the "Bloodworm." The pupa resides in 

 the water, and has five long pilose branchial filaments 011 each side of the thorax, and the extremity 

 of the body terminated by a long pencil of hairs. 



Ceratopogon is another extensive genus of which about eighty European species are known. 

 They also have beautifully feathered antennae, but the mouth is more perfectly developed than in the 

 rest of the family, the epipharynx and maxillae being free, pointed, lancet-like organs, with which the 

 females of some of the species are able to draw blood. They are generally very minute. The larvse 

 exhibit a considerable variety of habits, some living in the ground, some in water, and some under 

 the bark of dead trees. This is the case with the commonest British species (C. bipunctatus), a little 

 creature not more than a twelfth of an inch long, of a pitchy colour, with a clothing of yellowish hairs 

 vipon the thorax, and a white dot upon the fore margin of each of the transparent wings. The body 

 of the larva is cylindrical, slightly thickened in front, and each segment is furnished on the back with 

 two clubbed bristles ; the pupa is shorter, much broader in front, and has its abdomen partly encased 

 in the cast skin of the larva. 



FAMILY III. 



This family includes the largest species of the tribe, and, indeed, some of the largest Diptera. 

 None of them have feathery antennae like those common in the two preceding families, but these organs 

 are long, or, at any rate, longer than the head, thread-shaped, and generally furnished with short hairs, 

 although in a few species they are pectinated. The number of joints is usually thirteen, but sometimes 

 more. The eyes are rounded or oval, and the ocelli are wanting. The front of the head is usually 

 produced into a sort of beak distinct from the short fleshy proboscis ; the palpi are four-jointed, and 

 have the last joint very long and sometimes ringed ; the legs and abdomen are long, and the wings 

 have numerous veins, with some cross veins forming cells upon the disc of the wing. The larvae in 

 general live either in the ground or in rotten wood ; and the pupae, which are found in the same 

 situations, are provided with spines upon the abdominal segments, enabling them to push their way 

 out into the air when the perfect insect is about to emerge. The preparatory states of a few species 

 are, however, passed in the water. 



We may take as typical examples of this family the well-known insects which are commonly called 

 Daddy Long-legs, or CRANE FLIES (Tipula, PL 62, A), and may be met with in abundance in meadows 

 during the summer and autumn. The number of species is considerable, about fifty having been 

 described as inhabitants of Europe. The largest of them which is found in Britain is the Giant Crane Fly 

 ( Tijmla gigantea), the female of which measures about one inch and a quarter in length. The commonest 

 British species (T. oleracea) is rather smaller, the largest females not reaching the length of an inch. 

 The insect is of a hoary brownish colour, with four brown streaks on the back of the thorax, and has 

 the very long legs of a pale brownish-yellow colour, with the thighs, tibiae, and tarsi blackish towards 

 the end. The female lays a great number (about 300) of small, shining black eggs, which are 

 deposited in or on the ground, by means of an ovipositor composed of several valves, and she may 

 frequently be observed flying over lawns or other grassy ground, and every now and then pushing 

 down her abdomen so as to reach the earth. The larvae hatched from these eggs, which are commonly 

 known as grubs, and sometimes as "leather-jackets," from the texture of their skin, are soft cylindrical 

 creatures of a dingy greyish or brownish colour, destitute of feet, but furnished with several conical, 

 fleshy appendages at the hinder extremity of the body. When full grown they are from an inch to 

 an inch and a half in length. These larvae, and probably those of other species of Tipula which also 

 live in the ground, feed upon the tender rootlets of grass and other herbage, and also attack young 

 plants. In this way they often do an immense amount of mischief, laying bare large patches of 

 meadow and destroying great quantities of young corn. The change to the pupa state takes place 

 underground, and the pupae, which are naked, have a pair of respiratory tubes springing from near the 

 head. When about to give birth to the imago, they push themselves, by means of the spines on the 

 segments already mentioned, up to the surface of the ground, from which they finally protrude 

 perpendicularly for a good portion of their length ; the pupa case then splits, and the perfect insect 

 emerges. Tipula hortulana is common in gardens. 



