Metamorphosis of Insects. 59 



It lived, maybe several months, lowly and unin- 

 spired, preparing for this fleeting and wonderful 

 expression of its existence. 



Faint, sated with all that life can give, totally 

 exhausted by this final, supreme act, the male 

 passes from his brief love-flight to the inexorable 

 and mysterious realm of death. 



How sacred, then, does this act of love appear ! 

 Love and Death, the two great mysteries of earthly 

 life, linked in this primal, unexplained relation, the 

 one to the other. 



The female hastens to deposit her burden of 

 eggs upon some plant whose foliage will be useful 

 to those dear ones whom she will never see, and 

 then she too passes on to extinction. 



Some insects live for several years in the larval 

 stages, and then acquire wings, and live and love 

 for a brief period, in that short space concentrating 

 and consuming the vitality it has taken years to 

 accumulate. 



Tragic indeed is the tale of the mayflies ; for 

 two or three years the larvse live in the mud under 

 stones or among grass in the bottom of running 

 streams, their voracity armed with long, hard, 

 sickle-shaped jaws, with which to seize small 

 aquatic insects. 



Finally they emerge into the imago state, deli- 

 cate, fairy forms on gossamer wings. Gone are 

 the terrible jaws, a mere trace of a mouth remain- 

 ing, for they will never again taste food. All that 



