KEUROPTERA. 
59 - 
all directions. In the imago state the whole respiratory 
organization is changed, the gills are cast aside, and the 
insect now breathes by means of stigmata. 
The term “ May-fly’’ is indefinite, standing for various 
lands of insects in different counties. In Shropshire we 
restrict the word to the E. vulgata. It is quite an error 
to suppose that May-flies ( Ephemeridce ) are produced 
from the stick-baits or caddis worms, so common in 
every stream and pond; these are the larvae of the 
Pliryganidce , another family of Neuropterous insects. 
The terms caddis , cadoiv , caddice , are sometimes used to 
denote the May-fly. The derivation of the word is 
probably from the German Kdcler , “ bait,” these 
Ephemera nympha being abundantly consumed by trout 
and other fish just before assuming their winged state. 
Isaac Walton, however, appears to have held the erro¬ 
neous notion that the May-flies were produced from the 
stick-bait; he says, “ He loves the May-fly which is 
bied of the cod-worm or caddis, and these make the 
trout bold and lusty and Latham, in his € - Large 
Dictionary,” perpetuates the error, for under Caddis , 
he writes, “ a kind of worm or grub (generally the 
larva of the May-fly), found under water in a case of 
straw.” 
Let the reader sit by the bank of a stream some 
sunny afternoon the last week in May or the first in 
June, and he will witness the birth of thousands of 
May-flies. On coming to the surface of the water the 
nympha wriggles and struggles vigorously; the skin of 
the back splits and out comes a winged insect which 
flutters and flounders about till, if spared by fish, it 
gains the bank, the empty nympha skin floating down 
