ONE compensation for the coming of winter is that at that season we are free from the presence of the daddy-long-legs, known to the scientific as Tipula oleracea, who comes among us in the autumn in vast hosts, and makes himself as unpleasantly conspicuous as possible by his earnest and persevering efforts to commit suicide in our lamps and candles. This creature is remarkable as being a standing protest against the Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest. Nothing could be more unfit than this insect to battle for existence; his flight is slow and weary; he is incapable of dodging his pettiest foes, and his long, useless legs are everywhere in his way. Had there been anything in the theory, the Tipula oleracea would have set to work to shorten his legs, to strengthen his wings, and to attain something of the easy elegance and lightness of movement of his first cousin, the gnat. That it is no fault of his own that he has not done so we may be sure, for evidently the creature is painfully conscious of the clumsiness of his appearance and gait, and is prepared at the shortest of notice to divest himself altogether of the legs which are such an encumbrance to him. The urgency of his desire to commit suicide in the flames is another proof of his consciousness that he is a painful failure, and that the sooner he terminates his existence the better, and he gladly yields up his life on the smallest pressure between the human finger and thumb. He himself is unable to see, and no one else has been able to discover, the raison d’Être of his existence. He is certainly not ornamental, nor is he useful. He has no means of defence, and seems to have no joys in his life. He does not appear to have even the pleasure of going to sleep. Other insects are diurnal or nocturnal in their habits, but the Tipula is active all day, and about and on the look-out for candles all night. The closest observer has never seen him close an eye. Even in the grub state his existence cannot be a cheerful one, unless he derives a positive pleasure from the act of devouring everything he comes across. For as a grub, he possesses no legs, and no visible eyes; he is a round, wrinkled, tough tube, and one of the most destructive of the enemies of the farmer and the gardener.

Why in one stage of his life this creature should be altogether legless, while in the other he should possess an absolute superfluity of leg, is a problem which has puzzled the deepest thinkers, and it has been suggested that the abnormal stupidity of the daddy-long-legs is caused by his own ineffectual efforts to grapple with the problem. Nature, indeed, has given to him an infinitesimally small amount of brain. While in the fly and the ant the head bears almost the same proportion to the body as it does in the human species, in the Tipula oleracea it is not the hundredth part of the bulk of the body; indeed, it is questionable whether in all nature a creature is to be found so badly provided with head. Even the rustic mind, which is slow to recognise facts in Natural History, views this unfortunate and misshapen insect with good-natured pity and sympathy. The very village boys abstain from tormenting him, partly perhaps from their feelings of kindly contempt; more because he is too slow and stupid for his chase to cause any excitement; most of all because he parts with his legs and wings so willingly that there can be no pleasure in tormenting a creature who does not care whether he loses them or not. The Tipula is spoken of by rustics as Gaffer-long-legs, sometimes as Peter—or Harry-long-legs, and is credited with a character for harmlessness and blundering well-meaningness, which is sufficiently well deserved in his state as a perfect insect, but is wide of the mark indeed in his larva stage. The wrinkled tube is one of the most voracious of creatures, and nothing comes amiss to it. The roots of grass, turnips, potatoes, and, indeed, almost all vegetables, are equally welcome. When the villa gardener sees with dismay his cherished little piece of lawn turn yellow and gradually wither up, he knows, or ought to know, that it is the work of the grub of the daddy-long-legs. He had, indeed, in the autumn watched swarms of these creatures blundering about on the grass, taking short flights of a foot or two, and settling down again, but it did not then strike him that each and every one of them was hard at work laying eggs, and that their seemingly meaningless flights were only movements from crevice to crevice in the soil, an egg being inserted in the ground whenever the Tipula could find a spot in which she could introduce it. The work of maternity once completed, the daddy-long-legs waits till nightfall, and then hastens to commit suicide at the first friendly light. As many will, if an opportunity be offered, perform this speedy despatch previous to the deposition of their eggs, those who have the wellbeing of their lawn at heart will do well to light a fire of shavings or other brightly burning stuff in the close vicinity of their grass for an hour or two every evening when the daddy-long-legs first begin to appear in form. They will fly into the flames by thousands. Some may urge that such a method is cruel, but death in a large body of flame is instantaneous. Indeed, ocular demonstration is abundant to show that these creatures, as, indeed, most other insects, are scarcely capable of suffering; for, were it otherwise, it is hardly possible that they should, after repeated singeings, continue to fly at a candle flame till they finally succeed in destroying themselves. Where such measures as this are not taken, and the flies are permitted to deposit their eggs in the soil, the only method of safety is by rolling the ground with very heavy rollers, so as to destroy the grubs, but this has only a partial success, as most of them are too deep below the surface to suffer injury from the pressure.

Birds are valuable allies to the farmer and gardener in their war with the daddy-long-legs, but their numbers are wholly insufficient to cope with the evil. Even the most voracious bird would be choked did he try to stow away more than a certain-sized bundle of straggling legs and wings in his crop. Moreover, the Tipula appears at about the same time that plums ripen, and birds greatly prefer stone fruit to daddy-long-legs. As our own taste inclines the same way, we cannot find any serious fault with them on this score. Spiders dispose of a few, but it is remarkable that, awkward and blundering as the daddy-long-legs’ flight is, he very seldom intrudes into the meshes spread for him by the spider. He makes no efforts to avoid a human being, and will fly right into his face with the greatest nonchalance; he will settle in his hair, and cling to his clothes, but he will almost always manage to avoid a spider’s web. In the autumn spiders are extremely plentiful, and their webs spread from bush to bush, and from tree to tree, are a perfect nuisance to passers-by. With the nets spread for them in all directions, it is wonderful how the Tipula manages always to avoid these snares; for, however thickly they may be swarming in the garden, it will need a very careful search to find a single specimen in one of the webs.

This naturally gives rise to the idea that the daddy-long-legs is a far craftier insect than he is generally assumed to be, and that his awkwardness of gait and motion is assumed merely to gain sympathy and toleration; just as a woman pretends to be an invalid when she wishes to coax her husband into giving her something she has set her mind on. There may be something in the hypothesis, but the smallness of head and lack of brains are against the theory; and we prefer to believe that the insect’s power of avoiding the snares of the wily spider is due to some at present undiscovered sense or instinct. The daddy-long-legs has not been used to any extent for edible purposes, but there is no reason why he should not be as good as the locust, who is by no means bad eating. Those who are fond of experiments could easily collect a sufficient number by the aid of a sweep net on any piece of grass during the month of September.