The _Tipulidæ_ have a narrow, elongated abdomen, and long and slight limbs. The head is round, and the eyes, which are compound, are, especially in the males, very large. The wings, which are long and narrow, are sometimes held wide apart, sometimes horizontally, and sometimes bent so as to form, as it were, a roof. The balancers are naked and elongated; the abdomen long, cylindrical, and often terminating in a club in the male, and in a point in the female. The antennæ, which are longer than the head, are generally composed of from fourteen to sixteen joints, and are sometimes in the form of a comb or saw, sometimes furnished with hair, in form of plumes, bunches, or in a whorl. The larvæ live on plants, in the fields, in gardens, and sometimes in woods. The perfect insects, at first sight, resemble gnats, but are without a trunk, or rather their trunk is extremely short, terminating in two large lips, and the sucker is composed of two fibres only.[12] The larger species of _Tipulæ_, which are commonly known as "Daddy Longlegs," &c., and in France as "_Tailleurs_" and "_Couturières_," are found in fields at the end of September and commencement of October. [12] The genus _Cecidomyia_, which belongs to this family, presents the most extraordinary instance of agamo-genesis--or reproduction without fertilisation by another individual--at present known among insects. Until lately it was almost an axiom with naturalists that no insect was capable of reproduction until it had attained its adult or perfect state. Several Continental observers, some of them without any knowledge of the others' discoveries, have found that the _larvæ_ of some of the species of this genus reproduce larvæ resembling themselves in every respect; and what is still more strange, these larvæ live in a free state within the parent larvæ, feeding upon its tissues, and causing its ultimate destruction. A very interesting article on this subject will be found in the _Popular Science Review_ for the 1st April, 1868. The larvæ of a species (_Cecidomyia tritici_) frequently causes much injury to the wheat.--ED. "Although they sometimes fly a considerable distance," says Réaumur, "when the sun is bright and hot, they generally do not go far; often, indeed, only along the ground, or rather the top of the grass. Sometimes they only use their wings to keep them above the level of the herbage, and to take them along. Their legs, particularly the hind ones, are disproportionately large. They are three times the length of the body, and are to these insects what stilts are to the peasants of marshy and inundated countries, enabling them to pass with ease over the higher blades of grass."