128 PISCATORIAL ENTOMOLOGY. 



two years before it grows sufficiently, and has arrived 

 at a proper state of perfection to ascend. It is also 

 longer lived as a fly. Swammerdam speaks of it as 

 " a being of a day, whose life in a perfect state is 

 compassed in a few hours." Another affirms that 

 " they lay about eight hundred eggs immediately 

 upon the wings being developed, and the whole are 

 deposited in a shorter time than another insect would 

 consume in laying one." 



Our own experience tells us that they live from 

 eleven to fourteen days nine days as green, the 

 remainder grey and that they do not propagate their 

 species until they reach the final or perfect state, viz., 

 that of grey drakes. Nor do they lay eight hundred 

 eggs. Our investigations go to prove three or four 

 hundred to be the utmost possible limit ; and, as to 

 their depositing the whole instantly, the idea is absurd. 

 We have seen, more than once, Stone and Cinnamon 

 flies and common moths lay eggs at the rate of sixty 

 per minute one per second ; but with the up-winged 

 insects the operation is much more leisurely achieved. 

 Floods do not deter or retard the appearance of the 

 water flies, further than what damage may be done in 

 a sandy or loose-bottomed river by the larvae being 

 crushed or swept away. 



When the weather is seasonable, the drake appears 

 upon some waters literally in swarms, so thick that 

 to fill the live-fly basket is often the work of but a 

 few moments. The exact annual time to a few days 

 when they come " up " upon each river is slightly 

 subservient to the weather. 



