22 
NATURE STUDY. 
down the back. Then they slowly work themselves out, 
flimsy and feeble enough at first, with need of patience 
for several hours more while their bodies harden and their 
wings expand. The Mayflies have even more to do before 
they are ready for the last great business of their brief 
lives out of water. They leave their nymph shells to float 
down the stream—the fishes may have them now if they 
want them—while they themselves fly up to the pines. 
They have now their wings, feet, antennae and caudal setae 
all complete, but are still too heavily clothed for their new 
ways of life ; so they proceed to remove all superflous at¬ 
tire, drawing themselves .slowly from the outer skin that 
covers the entire insect. They are then the most gauze¬ 
like of all the creatures of the air, veritable sprites, and 
ready, on the next bright day, to choose their partners 
for what is, to many of them, a dance of death. There 
were many of the Dragonflies, still soft-bodied and weak, 
clinging to the greenish-yellow shoots of the pines, and 
there were many Mayflies undergoing their last transfor¬ 
mation. Everything was in readiness for the production 
of the tragedy; evidently there would be stirring times on 
the morrow. 
We were a little late, the Boy and I, on June 4, and the 
play had already begun. It would have gone on if we had 
not come at all; it was not for our benefit anyway. There 
is a sort of small amphitheater near the crest of the bluff, 
where small pines stand densely in the arc of a circle, with 
an open space before them. The sun shone in warm and 
bright, and there, in the sunshine, were the Mayflies dan¬ 
cing, as if in delirium of ecstacy, while the Dragonflies, 
ever and anon, darted among them, always seizing a vic¬ 
tim to be eaten at leisure while resting on the twigs of the 
pines. It was a plain case of color protection for the Drag¬ 
onflies—the yellow stripes and spots and bands of their 
gaily colored bodies blending with the greenish-yellow of 
