MAYFLOWER, the vessel which carried from Southampton, England, to Plymouth, Mass., the Pilgrims who established the first permanent colony in New England. It was of about i8o tons burden, and in company with the "Speedwell" sailed from Southampton on Aug. 5, 162o, the two having on board 120 Pilgrims. After two trials the "Speedwell" was pronounced un seaworthy, and the "Mayflower" sailed alone from Plymouth, England, on Sept. 6, with the 1 oo (or 102) passengers, some 41 of whom on Nov. II (o.s.) signed the famous "Mayflower com pact" in Provincetown harbour, and a small party of whom, in cluding William Bradford, sent to choose a place for settlement, landed at what is now Plymouth, Mass., on Dec. i t (21 N.s.), an event which is celebrated, as Forefathers' day, on Dec. 22. A "General Society of Mayflower descendants" was organized in 1894 by lineal descendants of passengers of the "Mayflower" to "preserve their memory, their records, their history, and all facts relating to them, their ancestors and their posterity." Every lineal descendant, over 18 years of age, of any passenger of the "May flower" is eligible to membership. Branch societies have since been organized in several of the States and in the District of Columbia, and a triennial congress is held in Plymouth.
See Azel Ames, The May-Flower and Her Log (Boston, i9o1) ; Blanche McManus, The Voyage of the Mayflower (New York, 1897) ; The General Society of Mayflower: Meetings, Officers and Members, arranged in State Societies, Ancestors and their Descendants (19oI) ; Jas. R. Harris, The Finding of the Mayflower, and The Last of the Mayflower (Manchester, Eng., 192o) ; Chas. Banks, The Officers and Crew of the Mayflower, Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., vol. lx., pp. 210-221 (1927). Also the articles PLYMOUTH, Mass. ; MASSACHUSETTS: His tory; PILGRIM FATHERS ; and PROVINCETOWN, Mass.
the name given to those insects formerly classi fied as the family Ephemeridae (Gr. lasting for a day; in allusion to their very short lives) of the old Linnean order Neuroptera. Their very distinctive characters and mode of life have since led entomologists to relegate them to a separate order of their own—the Ephemeroptera or Plectoptera.
May-flies are delicately formed, soft-bodied aerial insects, frequenting the margins of streams, rivers, and lakes. They can be easily recognized by their very short bristle-like antennae, aborted mouth-parts, and net-veined membranous wings, the hind pair being greatly reduced in size. The body is terminated by long thread-like caudal filaments, usually three in number. Their early stages are spent entirely in fresh water; most species lay their eggs in or on the surface of the water, but some descend beneath the water for the purpose, and may die there without re appearing. The eggs adhere together by means of a glutinous covering and are commonly discharged in two masses, but they soon separate in the water and become scattered by the current along the bottom. The nymphs are campodeiform with moder ately developed antennae and long caudal filaments : compound eyes and ocellia are usually present ; the mouth-parts are well developed and the legs long. Early in life segmentally arranged tracheal gills develop along the sides of the abdomen; in most cases they are leaf-like expan sions with tracheal branches ramifying in them. The nymphs moult a number of times, in some cases more than 20 ecdyses occur, and almost the whole life of the insect is spent in this stage. As a rule they are herbivorous, but some species are undoubtedly carnivorous: they are very varied in habit, some kinds fre quenting sandy bottoms, others hiding beneath stones, while a cer tain number burrow in mud or cling to water plants. Some are greatly flattened, and in the re markable genus Prosopistoma the whole body is used as a kind of sucker for attaching the crea ture to stones in swift running streams : its gills are enclosed in a carapace which forms a bran chial chamber, the water entering by a pair of apertures and leaving the chamber by a median exhalant opening. Other forms are active swimmers and live among aquatic vegetation.