The May-fly

...Usually, the female drops two packages of eggs, each of which may hold many hundred, into the water...

...Most of them are lost in unfavorable situations, just about as wantonly as the Mayflies lose their lives in the maze of city lights...

...Usually when an insect molts, and the new form gives it wings, it has reached the perfect state, but not so with the May-fly...

...The birds had collected hundreds of them in the few minutes they had been at work...

...The rest must have been pleasant, for scores of them remained on our bodies for more than an hour afterward...

...And then we started to the Tennessee River...

...Within two blocks I saw more dead and wounded May-flies lying about than there were victims of all nations in the late world war...

...The host of May-flies that flew wildly about that light made a circle fourteen feet in diameter, and so dense the eyes could not penetrate it...

...THE MAY-FLY By ROBERT SPARKS WALKER WE PAY little attention to an insect if it appears all alone, but let it come dancing in crowds of a thousand or a million and everybody has time to halt and marvel over its appearance...

...Even the barber's poles had full growths from top to bottom...

...The insects brushed our faces, necks and hands as spooks might be expected to do at a seance...

...Nature takes cognizance of this fact...

...Blackbirds and other birds were going to streets for their breakfasts instead of visiting the neighborhood lawns...

...On the electric-lettered boards that hung over the sidewalks, May-flies congregated so thickly that the reading was obscured and the lower edges of the boards had so many long hairs dangling that they looked as if they had been purposely fringed with fragile-looking whiskers...

...At the next street light, I saw a couple of robins eating an early breakfast...

...After the package breaks, the eggs are not long hatching, and the larvae have gills along the sides of their abdomens, and each one may have from two to three tail filaments...

...Nature lavishes the earth with life in both her animal and vegetable creations...

...Next morning, I was up and dressed by five o'clock...

...Miles of frail flies, maimed, helpless, fatigued, lay still or wobbly in the streets like an apple orchard floor surfaced with fallen petals at blossoming time...

...Then the old skin splits down the back of each, and the new creature that emerges is enabled to make short flights...

...This aroused the interest of almost every member and before we had descended to the street, the May-flies began to swarm by the thousands and beat frantically about the electric lights...

...The insects were beating as frantically and as constantly about the lights as the breakers beat at sea...

...Behold her hosts that she sends forth, anticipating the loss of ninety-nine out of every ioo, sometimes more...

...The filmy wings and long hairs gave whiskers to everything on which the hosts of insects rested...

...Business houses that were not closed here and there had a man out with a spraying outfit, throwing a deadly liquid over the unfortunate insects...

...It is natural that May-flies of the same species should hatch at the same time and reach the perfect state simultaneously when their eggs are deposited in the water on the same evening...

...So it makes little difference whether the fatal hour throws the May-fly down on the running water, or on the dry land, there is some hungry creature, a fish, or mayhap a bird waiting close by to satisfy his hunger...

...I had a burning curiosity to take a look at the street light below my house where I had seen so many May-flies beating meaninglessly about when I went to bed, less than five hours before...

...When the bodies were swept up together with those that had fallen from other misfortunes, piles were made six inches high...

...When we entered the principal business street that led directly to the river front, a look toward the river, where the strongest and most numerous electric lights were to be found in the city, discovered such a dancing mass of May-flies that it looked like a heavy snowstorm...

...He made a verbal picture of a species of May-fly, and when later on, I caught a specimen, I found when it was dead that it greatly resembled a flying fish, with a body one inch long, and two bristles, each one and threefourths inches long, protruding from the abdomen...

...I asked my friend, who was driving the car, if he would halt long enough that my son, whose eyes are keener than my own, might give me a description of one of these flies...

...But woe unto their hosts when bright lights rise up at sundown to entice them from their natural haunts...

...And then we drove up to a bright side-light in front of a rilling station...

...Even after the May-fly emerges from the old skin with wings, nature permits it to molt once again, and when this happens, it has arrived at the perfect state...

...Death wore a million grins every time an automobile's wheels turned over, and each time the pedestrian's foot touched the pavement two scores or more of insect lives faded out...

...I caught a dozen of the live fellows, some of which were strong enough to scramble about in my hand...

...Then the atmosphere is almost clogged with these and millions of other tiny seeds with parachutes that behave as if they had minds...

...When the noise of passing automobiles had died away, and left a little quietude in the atmosphere over our heads, the noise of the wings and bodies of May-flies beating against each other sounded precisely like that of falling snowflakes when the air is perfectly quiet...

...Recalling the past, I described the habits and life cycle of the May-fly (Ephemera...

...The mass was so dense that it was whitened...

...Nature likes to demonstrate that she glories in doing things differently...

...While I was on my way to attend a meeting of the Izaak Walton League in July, I observed scores of flies dancing nervously about the electric street lights...

...Indeed, had it not been a warm evening, and the air been chilly instead of sultry, one could easily have mistaken the scene for a heavy snowfall...

...The pavement was so densely covered with May-flies which had worn themselves out that all automobiles passing by made a frying sound such as one hears from the smacking noise made when wheels are running over a newly tarred surface of road on a warm day...

...Glittering things appeal to the gay and the inexperienced person, and they sap his life of its energy, and rob him of his intended achievements...

...When we stepped on an inclined pavement, our feet began slowly to slip from beneath our bodies, as if we were standing in so much grease...

...Telephone, electric-light posts and wires were heavily bearded, and all needed shaving...

...that she has no cut and dried rules, and no ruts are deep enough to imprison her therein...

...May-fly night is well matched in the vegetable world by the dissemination of trillions of golden rod and aster seeds in autumn...

...Some kinds require three years to reach the winged state, at which time they emerge from the water by the scores or tens of thousands...

...Some species of May-fly larvae crawl, some swim and some burrow in the mud...

...When I walked beneath the light, now gone, I found a mass of dead May-fly bodies, for the most part lying pasted to the tarred surface from passing automobiles, and yet a few were still alive and flapping their wings in a last effort to regain the heavens...

...But these are lost mostly in the seed, while on May-fly night, her creations have reached maturity, already mated or ready to mate, and the females should be flying over the river dropping their precious egg boxes into the water, instead of beating their lives out about bright lights...

...The flies covered our bodies, lit on our shoulders, our arms, our hands, our necks, our faces, as if glad to find a place to rest for a moment...

...The flies had gathered in great numbers, dimming the lights and flecking the illuminated show windows so that the glasses looked as if they had been dashed over with short streaks of a dark-colored paint...

...When I was invited to listen to a political address after the meeting closed, I told the president that I much preferred to go to the Tennessee River bridge and study something far more interesting—the May-flies...

...Then it is that life is so gay that it joins in the throng of its brothers for one great gala night, mating and laying their eggs usually the same night...

...Some feed on vegetation, some are carnivorous...

...A red-headed woodpecker, two mocking birds, two pigeons, an English sparrow and two blackbirds were busy salvaging the wrecked insect airships...

...But much of humanity is bewildered in life with as perfect delusions as are the lights to the May-flies...