Part 70

Yes, the caddice larva grows and moults in the usual way. It keeps adding to its house as it grows longer. Finally, it closes the end of its little tube and lies quite still.

You know what happens next. Its wormlike form divides into thorax and abdomen. Legs and wings appear, attached to the thorax. In short, it is no longer a wormlike creature.

Finally, it comes forth from its case. It never goes into it again.

It does not need to, for now it is a dainty little nun, with a long, tan-colored cloak. Its cloak, of course, is its wings folded down about its body. Like the fairy May flies it has no mouth and eats nothing in the adult form.

It looks like a dainty brown moth as it flutters about the bushes and goes flying up and down the brook.

You will always find these little brown-cloaked figures flitting about the brooks, where the caddice larvae live.

You see the caddice undergoes a complete metamorphosis.

No, it does not belong to the Neuroptera.

Examine its wings very carefully. Look at them through the magnifying glass, and you will see they are clothed with hairs.

So these are the hair wings.

The name of the order to which they belong is Trichoptera, from pteron, a wing, and thrix, a hair.

Sometime you must take a caddice larva from its house and put it in a saucer of water with fine bits of mica, which you know is another name for the isinglass that makes the little windows in our stoves.

If you are fortunate, your caddice will build for itself a little glass house, through whose walls you can look and see what is going on inside.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Transcribers note: In this text letters with a macron or breve are | |represented thus: | | | | | |"a" with a macron [=a] "a" with a breve [)a] | |"e" with a macron [=e] "e" with a breve [)e] | | | |"i" with a macron [=i] "i" with a breve [)i] | |"o" with a macron [=o] "o" with a breve [)o] | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

GLOSSARY

~Abdomen~ (ab-d[=o]'-men). The lower part of an animal's body. The part behind the thorax in insects.

~Adult~ ([)a]-dult'). (L. adultus = grown up.) Grown to full size and strength.

~Anchor~ (ang'-kor). (Gr. = a hook.) Anchors are used to fasten ships by a line to the bottom of the sea. Applied to anything that holds a movable body fast in one place.

~Antenna~ pl. ~Antennae~ (an-ten'-nee). The feeler in front of the insect's head with which it hears and smells as well as feels.

~Aphis~ ([=a]'-fis) pl. ~Aphides~ (af'-i-d[=e]z).

~Aphid~ (af'-id) The plant louse, of which there are a great many kinds.

~Apparatus~ (ap-a-r[=a]'-tus). Tools or machinery used in working or in making things.

~Aquarium~ (a-kw[=a]'-ri-um). (L. aquarium = watering-place for cattle.) A vessel of water for keeping water plants or water animals.

~Attract~ (at-trakt'). (L. attractus = draw to.) To draw toward.

~Audubon~ (aw'-do-bon), John James. A very famous student of birds and their ways. In his great book, "The Birds of America," which was published in 1827, there are many large colored drawings made by himself.

~Beech-nuts~ Small, three-cornered nuts that grow on beech trees, and that are very sweet and good.

~Breeding-place~ The place where young animals are born.

~Brood~ A family of young animals.