1913] 
Burrill, The Giant Midge, Chironomus plumosus. 
135 
swarm in the air. In the same way I might divide my flattened 
ellipse above into four components, the flattened sides being over 
a meter long and the rise or fall at the ends 3-5 dm. Besides this 
was the reversed motion in the same horizontal plane and the sep¬ 
arate wavy jerking of the whole swarm. 
Fly on Cloudy Days .—August 17th proved a cloudy day so 
that the midges were still flying in swarms, though in lessened 
numbers, all along Lake Winnebago. It was perhaps as much 
due to the obnoxious quantities of midges as to the poor state of 
the camp ground that we took a hasty departure this day, despite 
the fact that we had planned to spend some time in special drills 
on horse and on foot. 
Mating .—Walking or standing still amidst the swarms, I did 
not observe one case of mating where the pairs fall to the ground 
and the males return to the swarm (Miall & Hammond 1900, 
183), although in most swarms of smaller midge species previ¬ 
ously observed this feature was characteristic. I cannot account 
for my failure to see. mated couples, having found it so easy to 
note in far tinier species. 
Egg-laying vs. Legs with Gluey Drops .—Of those plumosi 
caught and others seen at ease after alighting, a few were discov¬ 
ered to have one or more mud-covered masses, like dried Le 
Page’s glue drops, on one or the other of their hind legs, as if the 
leg in question had been broken and had had the body fluids ooze 
out and harden. These were probably all females, as those seen 
at rest were such. As the smashed bodies of these soft creatures 
did not seem to have enough fluid in the body either to make the 
amount or to color this gluey drop to the shade of Le Page’s 
Glue, it may have been due to the disturbing of certain females 
so that they flew before their egg mass was wholly discharged 
(cf. Miall & Hammond 1900, 10; Howard 1908, in) ; or less 
likely, it may have been some of the gelatinous larval case still 
adhering (Johannsen 1905, 187). As the eggs are laid in the late 
evening or early morning in a dark gelatinous mass (Howard 
1908, iii) or egg-rope (Miall 1903, 146) it might not have been 
too early at mid-afternoon for some females to begin voiding. 
Balbiani (1885, 542, 1 and 2) figures the beginning and end of 
egg-laying of an unknown species, the egg-rope being attached to 
the side of a glass containing water. On touching the water in 
