rmidable-looking. Now, Willy, lend me your net, and I dare say
we shall soon secure a specimen. What have we here? how the pond
swarms with water-fleas! Oh! here is a treasure! What can it be? a
long animated thread of glass--we will put it into a bottle by itself
and I will tell you about it afterwards. Splash goes the net again,
but no water-beetle larvae. Never mind; what does the child's songbook
say--

"If at once you don't succeed,
Try, try, try again."

[Illustration: GREAT WATER-BEETLE, LARVA AND PUPA.]

A capital little verse to remember, so we will try again; and there
now we are rewarded by the capture of a dyticus larva--a creature with
a long body--in some respects reminding one of a shrimp. Oh! look at
his jaws, how wide he opens them! You see that the last segment of the
body is provided with a long pair of bristly tails, by means of which
the creature can suspend itself at the top of the water. I have often
kept specimens of these larvae in vessels of water and noticed their
predaceous habits; they feed on the larvae of other water insects, but
are not able to destroy fish, not being furnished with jaws or bodies
nearly so strong as the perfect insect itself possesses. When the
larva wishes to turn into its pupa state, it makes a round hole in the
bank of the pond it inhabits, and there undergoes its change, turning
into a full-grown beetle in about three weeks' time. "Papa," said
Willy, "I have often caught beetles that remind me of the great
water-beetle, but they are not so large; what are they?" They belong
to the same family as the great water-beetles, and are called
_Colymbetes_, _Acilius_, _Cybister_; I do not know that they have any
English names. Come, we have dabbled in this pond long enough for the
present, let us proceed on our walk. "Well, but, papa," said May, "you
have not told us what that long worm-like creature is in the separate
bottle; do let us look at it again. Oh! really it is a curious
creature, why it is as transparent as glass, now it jerks itself
about, now it floats without motion in mid-water. What is it?" "I am
inclined to think," said Willy, "judging from its wriggling, jerking
motions that it must be the larva of some kind of gnat." Right again,
my boy, it _is_ the larva of a gnat, and one known to naturalists by
the name of _Corethra_; you see there are eleven divisions or segments
in the body; the head is of strange form, and near the mouth are two
hooked arm