May Fly

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

a family of insects resembling the dragon fly . The front wings are like those of a small dragon fly, but are exceedingly delicate. The hind wings are small or wanting. Both pairs are held straight up above the back when the insect lights. The abdomen terminates in two, sometimes three, thread-like appendages longer than the entire body proper. The body is transparent. The adult female lays her eggs on the surface of the water, or wraps her wings about her and dives to the bottom and affixes them to stones. The young nymph is fitted both to crawl and to swim. It lives in the water on vegetation or insects from one to three years, according to the species, throwing off its skin perhaps a score of times. Some quiet afternoon in early summer it climbs out of the water, bursts its last nymph dress, and takes flight, a delicate winged insect. Then, strangely enough, it alights in a few minutes and sheds its first May fly skin from head, body, and wings, and takes its flight again. The fullgrown May fly has no mouth parts and takes no food. It lives but a day or a few hours, and has but one impulse, to lay its eggs and die. Sometimes at dusk of a quiet evening, May flies by the thousand may be seen dropping down to the surface of a lake to lay their eggs. All the while, a gulping noise and widening circles of ripples indicate that the fish are having the feast of a lifetime. It is not strange that poets and philosophers have moralized over the short life of the adult May fly.