434 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
INSECTA. 
Abundance of Crane-flies at Yarmouth.—To me the most interesting 
phenomenon obtaining in this neighbourhood in September (irrespective 
of the invasion of Godwits, ante, p. 395) was the appearance of immense 
numbers of the Common Crane-fly (Tvpula oleracea), or ‘‘ Daddy-Long- 
legs,” a harmless enough insect in itself, but whose larva, known as 
the notorious ‘‘ Leather-jacket,” is a most destructive creature. For 
two or three weeks their numbers were legion—they must have 
mustered in millions; they swarmed the rank marsh-grasses like 
locusts, and hung in bunches on the taller grasses topping Breydon 
walls for miles, until they looked like over-ripe reed-tufts in late 
autumn bursting with ripening seeds; they flew up in clouds as one © 
brushed through the rank grasses. They were courting in the earlier 
part of the month, and were utterly oblivious to everything around 
them, and later on. the females were depositing their eggs by the 
thousand in among the root-grasses, when those remaining upon the 
elevated grasses were mostly males. I was much interested in 
watching the seemingly much-weakened females which had deposited 
their eggs—some one hundred and fifty to two hundred in number, I 
roughly calculated in individuals—which were black and bean-shaped. 
They flew, or rather were wafted along listlessly, over Breydon, and 
feebly by the southerly and westerly winds, like so many parachute- 
seeds of the coarse thistle. Now and again they would lower them- 
selves, as if to rest, when their leg-tips touched the water, on contact 
with which a start upwards would again be made, to be followed 
directly by another toe-dip. Hach succeeding flight became shorter, 
until the weary thing would tumble on the surface, to rise once more 
perhaps from the crest of a ripple, and with an effort to clear itself it 
would once more mount a few feet. I noticed, however, that when 
the ovipositor had become once wetted the body appeared to lose 
rigidity, and successive dips waterlogged it, until at all sorts of angles 
and postures still weaker individuals would be struggling as they 
drifted by my boat. Further and further into the water the six long 
paralyzed legs would go, the wings being held erect as if to catch the 
wind, but eventually failing strength would give way altogether, and 
the poor brutes would feebly struggle until drowned. Thousands 
thus succumbed, and their dead bodies, hind legs drawn up, floated 
down to the sea. Queerly enough, I found hardly any males; their 
turn came a few days after, and by the end of the third week in 
September they had vanished, probably sharing the same fate. At 
about that time a long black wavy line, inches wide, by the sea 
