452 THE WONDER OF LIFE 



Tennyson's picture, which is only one out of a possible 

 score equally dramatic. 



To-day I saw the dragon-fly 



Come from the wells where he did lie. 



An inner impulse rent the veil 



Of his old husk : from head to tail 



Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 



He dried his wings; like gauze they grew; 



Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew 



A living flash of light he flew. 



May -Flies. Not unfamiliar in May or June is the emer- 

 gence of a crowd of May-Flies or Ephemerides from the 

 pond or from a backwater of the river. In our Biology 

 of the Seasons we have described the long larval life in 

 the water, sometimes lasting for two or three years ; the 

 growth and the moultings ; the final moult, the unfolding 

 of the filmy wings, and the transient aerial dance some- 

 times lasting only for a day. The long-drawn-out nutritive 

 and growing period stands in remarkable contrast to the 

 hurried reproductive chapter. They rise like a living 

 mist from the pond ; they dance in the pleasant light of 

 the summer evening ; they dimple the smooth water into 

 smiling with a touch, chasing, embracing, separating. . . . 

 ' They never pause to eat they could not an they would ; 

 hunger is past, love is present, and in the near future is 

 death. The evening shadows grow longer shadows of 

 death to the day-flies. The trout jump at them, a few 

 rain-drops help to thin the throng, the stream bears others 

 away. The mothers lay their eggs in the water and wearily 

 die forthwith, cradle and tomb are side by side ; and the 

 males also pass from the climax of love to the other crisis 

 of dying. But after all, the eggs are in the water, the 



