6 o 
NATURK STUDY. 
transparent color and become more opaque and more yel¬ 
low in hue. 
At this stage they are about ready to descend to the 
earth to undergo metamorphosis and come forth in the 
winged form, as their ancestors have done before, twice 
during the season, one brood in May or early June, and 
again in August. Their transformations are passed 
through rapidly, and the winter is spent in the ground. 
The adult fly is little more than three-twentieths of an 
inch in length, black and shining, with smoky wings, and 
the first two pairs of legs are grayish white, except the 
femora, which are mostly black, and the hind legs are 
black, with whitish knees. The antennae are noticeably 
delicate and graceful, and are kept in constant, quivering 
motion. 
Hoping to protect the bushes from the race with 
the insatiable appetite which was to follow, I began 
the slow task of collecting the parent flies by brushing 
them into a jar. The morning was a little cool and cloudy, 
the flies were hardly awake, and in this case the experi¬ 
ment worked well, but usually the males are active and 
given to flying about, and are more difficult to capture 
than the females, which, when disturbed, are wont to re¬ 
lax their hold upon the leaf, and drop as if dead to the 
ground below. 
“The underlying object in all our teaching is to make 
seeing, thinking, self-reliant, honest men and women. 
All branches of natural science, rightly pursued, are pow¬ 
erful means to this end.” 
