Our crane-flies, or daddy-long-legs, when they swarm about the grass are intent on two objects. They do not require food; they have had enough when they were grubs concealed in the soil. They are now busy, first, in pairing, so that the females' eggs may be fertilized; and, secondly, the females are about to choose a likely piece of ground in which to bore with their pointed tails and lay their eggs. They prefer rather damp spots, shaded from the fierce drying heat of the sun, for this purpose. When laying her eggs, the female balances herself with her legs in an upright position, and, pushing the sharp tail into the earth, moves round by the aid of her legs, to the right and to the left, so as to bore a quarter of an inch or so into the loose soil. Then she lays two or three eggs, and, coming down from her upright pose, moves on through the blades of grass for 3 or 4 inches, and again takes an upright attitude, and repeats the boring and egglaying. The eggs are very small, black, shining grains, of which as many as 300 are found in the body of one ripe female. The male crane-fly has a broad, somewhat expanded end to its body, by which it is easily distinguished from the female. From the eggs minute maggots or grubs hatch and feed upon animal and vegetable refuse in the soil, but as they increase in size they burrow an inch or so into the ground among the grass roots. There are two broods, one in spring and a more abundant one in August and September. The grubs have no legs. Insect grubs are often legless, as, for instance, the maggots or "gentles" of bluebottle-flies. Or they are provided with short legs, as, for instance, are the "caterpillars" or grubs of moths and butterflies. The grubs of the crane-fly (Fig. 22, B) show eleven rings or segments to the body, and have a tough grey or brownish skin, which is so firm as to give them the name of "leather-jackets." They have a head provided with a pair of short, strong mandibles or jaws, and a very short pair of feelers (antennæ). These grubs grow to be an inch and a half long, and are two-thirds the thickness of a common quill pen. They gnaw with their hard jaws the young shoots and roots of grass, and do an enormous amount of damage to grassland. They are rarely seen except when a sod is lifted, but in late spring and summer, when the grub changes to a motionless pupa or chrysalis, they may be seen protruding for about a third of their length from the surface amidst the grass tufts. Birds eat them and rooks dig with their beaks into the sod in order to pull them out, leaving a number of small pits (on the golf links) where they have been at work. The proper name of these injurious grubs is "leather-jackets." They are often confused with another grass-and-wheat pest, the "wire-worm," and are in consequence sometimes called "false wire-worms." The "wire-worm" is the grub of a beetle (Fig. 22, C and D), and is very different in appearance and history from the