28 ANIMAL LIFE

pond or stream, and there feeds on decayed vegetable matter. If
you require these larve for the aquarium, you must dredge in some
of the pond mud with your net; or you may stir up the mud with
a stick, and then capture the larve which have been driven out with
the net.

After spending about two years in the larval and pupal states,
the insect leaves the water towards the close of a day. Its skin then
splits along the back, and out comes a rather heavy-flying insect,
which is called the false-imago, and settles at once on the bark of a
neighbouring tree. Here it rests for a time, after which the second
skin splits, and from it escapes the perfect and active little May-fly,
leaving the ‘ false’ skin still attached to the tree. The perfect May-
fly has no mouth, and requires no food, for it is destined to live for a
few hours only! It joins the merry company over the water’s edge,
and dances during the evening twilight with an incessant up-and-
down motion. Before the sun rises in the morning it has finished
its frolicking, deposited its little cluster of eggs, and fallen dead, with
all its playmates of the previous evening, either on the water or near
its edge. It has lived two years in its preparatory stages, but in its
perfect form it has, perhaps, not taken one single peep at the sun.

    

Fic. 25.—Cappis-Fuigs.

Our last example is the Caddis-fly, known also as the Cad,
Grannum, and Cockspur. This is well known to anglers, for both
the larva and the perfect insect are admirable for bait. The fly
itself is not swift on the wing like the dragon-fly, but it runs quickly,
and it can do this even on the surface of water. The chief interest,
however, lies in the larva, which constructs a home for itself out of
materials found in the water. It cements together pieces of stick,
sand, shells, dead leaves &e. into a little tubular habitation sufii-