66 LIST OF FLIES. 
breast, for legs ; wings, slips from the light brown web of 
a feather in the snipe or starling’s wing. 
The red ant fly plants her colony on the ground, in or 
near woods, and often on the sloping banks of rivers and 
small streams, in dry and sheltered places, there they find 
protection and materials for building their city, which is 
composed of small pieces of dried sticks, straws, stones, and 
dead leaves, etc., which they form into mounds or beds, 
with passages into the interior, extending the suburbs as 
the citizens increase. There are several beds in Macker- 
shaw, on the Skell, and in Magdalen’s wood opposite Hack- 
fall, on the Ure. Their sizes vary in different situations ; 
the largest are found in the dells and sheltered places on 
the edges of the moors. Near Mr. Calvert's stone quarry, 
in Skellgill, there are several beds, and the ants are larger 
than those below. The winged portion begin to leave their 
colony next month in vast swarms; the country people 
sometimes see them take wing on warm sultry days, which, 
they say, is prognostic of wet weather. They are a mar- 
vellous insect ; the Supreme has written their everlasting 
laws, which they all instinctively obey, and the power that 
entailed labour upon them made that labour voluntary. 
There is a large bed just within the low fence of the plan- 
tation in Mall White, well worth the walk to see. The 
scriptural mandate, ‘Go to the ant,” etc., may be applied 
generally, for—as well as their lessons of industry—they 
cannot but create the most lively feelings of admiration and 
wonder in all who behold them. 
78TH.—WHITE-LEGGED DuN.—Full length about three- 
eighths ; feelers three-eighths, rankly marked light and 
dark ; wings a dark brown dun or chocolate hue, with light 
reddish touches; eyes, shoulders, and body, dark brown 
dun, almost black; part of thighs, legs, and feet, a dull 
white. When looked through to the light is of a dark dun 
