272 Book of the Black Bass. 



nioTis names. The male of the 

 perfect, winged-insect has long an- 

 tennse, or horns, from which its 

 specific and common names are 

 derived. 



It exists for several years in the 

 larval state, when it is generally 

 known as the " helgramite,"' being a 

 curious, flattened, and, to most 

 persons, a repulsive-looking worm, 

 growing to a length of two or three 

 inches, and about a half inch in 

 width. It has a head and pincers 

 resembling, somewhat, those of a 

 beetle; has six legs along the thorax; while the body is 

 composed of a nvimber of rings, to which are attached 

 fringes bearing some likeness to small legs; the body ter- 

 minates in two short appendages, or tails, on each of which 

 are two small hooks. The color is a dark, dirty, brown. 



The helgramite, by means of its hooks and pincers, 

 clings readily and tenaciously to different objects, and 

 hides securely under rocks, boulders, drift- 

 wood, logs, etc., even in swift-running streams. 

 They may be found clinging to the decaying 

 timbers of old dams and bridges, and in the 

 crevices of submerged stone-work at these , 

 places. They are found on the " riffles " of 

 streams, under the boulders and flat stones, 

 and may be taken in these situations with 

 the minnow-net, by stretching the latter 

 across the foot of the riffle; when the stones 

 above the net are turned over, the helgramite, 

 being thus disturbed, curls himself into a 

 ball drifts into the net. 



