130 FLIES. 



Some of the species captured are exceedingly 

 minute, but the human spider, like the arachnidan 

 specialist, counts nothing lost that comes to his 

 net ; so all these little winged motes have per- 

 chance been seen before, have classical names 

 many times longer than themselves, and,- as if 

 they were the largest creatures on earth, are hon- 

 ored with stately descriptions in the books. 



Mr. Theridon, the proprietor, is modest and 

 retiring in his habits, when visitors come to his 

 museum. In his absence, I have purloined a 

 brownish oddity, belonging to this same crane-fly 

 family. Curiously enough its wings are quite 

 thickly covered with long, fine hairs or wool. Its 

 surname is erioptera (wool wing) and this singu- 

 larity, together with the peculiar curve of the last 

 longitudinal vein, which converges toward and 

 almost touches the one above it, are the distinct- 

 ive characteristics of the genus to which it 

 belongs. 



What is this singular insect that, as you search 

 among the sedges of the bog, rises up, moving 

 slowly through the air, or rolling along over the 

 tall spears so oddly that one is almost in doubt 

 whether it is an insect at all, or some strange non- 

 descript, produced by the chemistry of the putrid 

 water and rank vegetation.^ Its flight is remarka- 

 bly like the aimless drifting of the dandelion pap- 

 pus on the light zephyrs. Indeed it resembles, at 



