35 8 CHARACTERS OF INVERTEBRATE ANIMALS 



The Crane-Flies are much larger insects, of which the Daddy- 

 Long- Legs {Tipula oleracea and other species) is known to all. 

 The peculiarly long legs are especially useful in enabling the 

 animal to progress rapidly through grass. The eggs are laid 

 in meadows, and the larvae feed upon the roots of grasses. 



All the preceding are distinguished by comparatively long 

 antennee, but in numerous families these appendages are very 

 short. Well-known examples are the Horse-Stinger or Cleg 

 (Tabanus bovis), a large speckled insect, the bite of whose 

 female has been experienced by most of us in walking through 

 woods; the notorious cattle pests called Bot-Flies {Hypoderma 

 bovis, ox-bot; CEstrus ovis, sheep-bot; Gastrophilus equi, horse- 

 bot); and the Tsetse - Fly (Glossina morsitans). Here, too, 

 belong the Blue-Botde {Musca vomitorid), House-Fly {Musca 

 domestica), and their allies, constituting a family in which the 

 piercing mouth-parts, as found in many of the preceding, have 

 been reduced to mere vestiges, while a complex sucking proboscis 

 is present, formed chiefly by the labium. The Fly's tongue is one 

 of the commonest, most beautiful, and at the same time most 

 complicated, of microscopic objects. 



The Fleas are doubtfully associated with the Diptera as degraded 

 forms living parasitically on the bodies of warm-blooded animals. 

 The mouth-parts are modified for piercing and sucking, but pre- 

 sent considerable differences from the arrangement described for 

 the Gnats, &c. (p. 355). Wings are absent, and so are compound 

 eyes, the organs of vision consisting only of a simple eye on each 

 side. The long strong hind-legs are associated with great powers 

 of leaping. The Common Flea [Pulex irritans) is not, as often 

 imagined, the same species as those infesting cats, dogs, and 

 other domestic animals. It appears, indeed, that there are very 

 numerous sorts of Fleas associated with different Mammalia, even 

 Bats being attended by their own peculiar species. 



Order 4. — MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES (Lepidoptera) 



The insects of this order are, in the vast majority of cases, 

 so characteristic-looking that they can be recognized at first sight 

 mainly because they possess two large pairs of wings covered with 

 minute variously-shaped scales (fig. 210), easily rubbed off as what 

 is popularly called the " dust " of the wing. The presence of 



