. A manual for the study of insects. Insects. EPHEMERIDA, 8/ Family Ephemerid^ (Eph-e-mer'i-dae). The May-flies, In river or lake towns, during the warm evenings of late spring or early summer, the electric lights or street lamps are often darkened by myriads of insects that dash against them, and the pavements are made slippery by their dead bodies which have been trampled under foot. They are not the ordi- nary night-flying moths: if an individual of the thousands that cling to the posts and buildings in the vicinity of the light be examined, it will prove to be a delicate creature with dain
. A manual for the study of insects. Insects. EPHEMERIDA, 8/ Family Ephemerid^ (Eph-e-mer'i-dae). The May-flies, In river or lake towns, during the warm evenings of late spring or early summer, the electric lights or street lamps are often darkened by myriads of insects that dash against them, and the pavements are made slippery by their dead bodies which have been trampled under foot. They are not the ordi- nary night-flying moths: if an individual of the thousands that cling to the posts and buildings in the vicinity of the light be examined, it will prove to be a delicate creature with dainty, trembling wings and two or three long, white, thread-like organs on the end of its body ; the body itself is so transparent that the blood within can be seen pulsating. The front wings are large and finely netted, and the hind wings are small or absent (Figs. 94, 95). ^^a* twS^nged So fragile are these pale beings that they seem ^^" ^* like phantoms rather than real insects. No wonder that poets have sung of them as the creatures that live only a day. It is true that their winged existence lasts often only a day or even a few hours; but they have another life, of which the poet knows nothing. Down on the bottom of a stream, feeding on mud, water-plants, or other small insects, lives a little nymph with delicate, fringed gills along its sides and two or three long, many-jointed, and often feathery appendages on the end of the body (Fig. 96). It has strong legs and can both walk and swim. 'After about the ninth molt—there may be twenty molts in all—there appear on its thorax four little sacs which are the beginnings of wings ; with each molt these grow larger, until finally the last skin of the water-nymph is shed, and gills and mouth-parts are all left behind, and the insect comes forth, a winged May-fly. But there is still —Nymph ,^1 :.^^^^+. of May-fly. another change to be undergone, ine insect has not yet reached the adult state. After flying a. Please n
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectinsects, bookyear1895
