J 
 
 tu U*.
 
 O* CALl*. LiiJKAKY, LOS ANGELEfc 
 
 HtoersiDe JLibrar^ for looting people 
 
 NUMBER 4 
 
 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS 
 BY MARY E. BAMFORD
 
 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY E. BAMFORD 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 (Cte UtoewiDe Ifress, Cambribge 
 1895
 
 Copyright, 1889, 
 Br MARY E. BAMFORB. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Company.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 DREDGING NOTES 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 WATER-SCORPIONS 17 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 MY WATER-LOVERS 30 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 WATER-BOATMEN 52 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 WATER-TIGERS . . . ' . . . . . .59 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 WHIRLIGIGS 80 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 WATER-LIZARDS AND THEIR ILK 101 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 MINOR MCD AND WATER FOLK 116 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CADDIS-WORMS . .... 135
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 MY CORYDALUS . 144 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE 154 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER . . .171 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 A LINGERING GOOD-BYE 2(Y.\
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THE insects mentioned in these pages are those 
 that I have found by hunting in several brooks in 
 Alameda County, California. The fact of the 
 distance of my point of observation from the 
 places where most readers reside makes no espe- 
 cial difference, however, as members of the same 
 families of insects will be found in or beside al- 
 most any brook, East or West. The various types 
 of boy mentioned here probably exist in both sec- 
 tions of the country, also ; and I will promise 
 those who go dredging in the Atlantic - coast 
 streams that there shall appear to them the ap- 
 paritions of both the "fat woman" and th? "wan- 
 derer from Erin's isle."
 
 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 DREDGING NOTES. 
 
 " Tush, tush ! fear boys with bugs." 
 
 Taming of the Shrew. 
 
 " You must n't ever let one of those big white 
 dragon-flies come near you," said a little girl 
 to me, impressively ; " for, don't you know, they 
 've got a needle and thread inside every one 
 of them, and, if they catch you, they '11 sew your 
 ears up," and she looked at me with solemn child- 
 ish eyes, evidently believing in the anticipated 
 calamity. / 
 
 " Yes," her little companion chimed in, " they '11 
 sew your ears, an' eyes, an' nose, an' mouth up," 
 and, having faithfully warned me, the little ones 
 trotted up the bank and disappeared, leaving me 
 to smile that the ancient prejudice against dragon- 
 flies should find such firm advocates beside a Cali- 
 fornia stream. 
 
 Meantime, from the depths of the brook beside 
 me, my muddy cloth dredger brings up various
 
 2 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 larval and perfect forms of insect-life. Great, 
 sprawling, green larvae of dragon-flies cling with 
 their six legs to the dredger, and, to their indig- 
 nation, are tumbled headlong into the pail that 
 is to carry the findings home. Smaller larvae of 
 the Agrion dragon-flies come with them. Occa- 
 sionally one of the Hydrometridce, so-called water- 
 spiders, or skaters, that spend life in an almost 
 endless skate on top of the water, comes up in 
 my dredger, gazes at me in surprise, and then 
 skips back into the pool, to begin again the skat- 
 ing-match with his brethren, and to watch for any 
 unlucky yellow morsel of a lady-bug that may 
 chance to fall from the overhanging grasses into 
 the brook. Did Don Luis Peralta, half a century 
 ago, when he gave this land to Antonio Maria, 
 know what a multitude of living creatures he gave 
 with it ? 
 
 Now and then one of the black Dytiscidce, or 
 Water-Tigers, an inch in 
 length, tumbles clumsily 
 from the dredger ; and his 
 smaller brethren abound. 
 These Dytiscidw are mur- 
 derers at heart, as no one 
 can doubt who has ever 
 seen an earth - worm in 
 their power. No sooner 
 does the earth-worm fall 
 into the water of the bottle in which these beetles 
 
 Water-^skater. 
 Hydrotrechus remigis.
 
 DREDGING NOTES. 3 
 
 are confined, than one of the hungry Dytiscidce 
 will pounce on the unlucky creature. - Another 
 beetle, looking up from the bottom of the jar, 
 will behold the prize to which his 
 brother has fallen heir, and straight- 
 way, filled with covetousness, will 
 rush upward through the water to 
 pull the desired morsel away if pos- 
 sible. One beetle will tug in one 
 direction, the other in another ; they 
 rush through the water, shaking their 
 victim in perfect fury, till a person 
 watching the battle might almost hear the first 
 beetle squeak, " I will have it," and the other 
 reply, " You shan't." And so the fight goes on, 
 till one of the beetles conquers, and departs to 
 enjoy the spoils of war. 
 
 Numbers of silvery beetles, the water-boat- 
 men, or Notonectidce, are brought to the surface, 
 wrathfully skipping around in the dredger, and 
 sometimes nimbly hopping back into the brook 
 just as they are about to be transferred to the 
 pail. Well do I remember my amazement, one 
 day during my first acquaintance with these bee- 
 tles, when, having transferred my silvery treas- 
 ures to a pan of water, I had sat down to watch 
 them as they swam on their backs, and, suddenly, 
 one, the prettiest of the number,, having turned 
 over, flew straight out into the air, passed my ear 
 with a booming sound like that of an angry
 
 4 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 hornet; and sailed away above the apple-trees, 
 never to return. I have ever since retained a 
 respect for the flying powers of the Notonec- 
 tidce. 
 
 Water-boatmen. Notonectidce. 
 
 But my dredging is disturbed. 
 
 " What you catching ? Fish ? " demands a voice. 
 and I look up to see the yellow head of an in- 
 quisitive fourteen-year-old youth peering over the 
 bank. 
 
 Evidently he may have been watching my per- 
 formances for some time, unperceived. 
 
 " Water-beetles," and I hold up my pail to 
 show the contents. 
 
 " What are they good for ? " proceeds the utili- 
 tarian. 
 
 I hesitate a moment. Shall I tell him of the 
 decaying leaves, that these numerous Hydrophi- 
 lidce devour, assisted by these pond-snails ; of the 
 yearly plague of frogs from which we are de-
 
 DREDGING NOTES. 5 
 
 livered by the disappearance of the juices of the 
 polliwogs through the proboscides of these water- 
 boatmen ; of the multitudes of mosquitoes that 
 never have a chance to bite us, because as wig- 
 glers they have met their fate under the masks 
 of these dragon-fly larvae ? I excuse myself from 
 this lecture on zoology, and make answer, "I 
 take them home and keep them, and study their 
 habits." 
 
 The boy eyes me suspiciously. Evidently that 
 answer is not satisfactory to his mind. He thinks 
 I am trying to cover up some great secret, some 
 profound mystery that I object to his understand- 
 ing. 
 
 He has constructed a theory of his own. Per- 
 haps he lay awake nights thinking of the problem. 
 He may have done so. I have been here often 
 enough to excite the curiosity of any one who has 
 observed me. 
 
 He has an idea. He will throw it at me and 
 see if I, the guilty criminal, do not start when 
 my secret plans are so openly disclosed. 
 
 He puts the momentous question. 
 
 " Do you make them into medicine ? " he cries. 
 
 He eyes me as I repudiate the charge. I think 
 he is persuaded in his own mind that he has 
 hit 011 the exact solution of the mystery. I am 
 a concoctor of horrible drugs. I fear that I 
 am henceforth to be classed by him with those 
 Chinese medicos who are rumored to concoct
 
 6 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 Celestial medicine from horned toads and like 
 crawling things. 
 
 Another large dragon-fly larva comes to the 
 surface accompanied by two or three polliwogs. 
 I remember being present at the massacre of a 
 small company of polliwogs by some dragon-fly 
 larvae. The cool deliberation with which one of 
 those larvae, in particular, would crawl cautiously 
 up a stick inside of the bottle, and, holding on 
 near the end, would wait there until one of those 
 black, immature toads came within reach, was 
 terrible. Nearer came the polliwog, wriggling 
 happily through the water, all un- 
 conscious of danger ; and the larva, 
 throwing out its mask and drawing 
 it back again over the mouth so sud- 
 denly that the mask was just per- 
 ceptible, would take a bite out of the 
 polliwog. The poor victim would go 
 rushing on, and the larva, having 
 disposed of one mouthful, would pat 
 its head with one foot, as if to pack 
 the first morsel safely in, and then 
 
 would veach out and take another 
 bite from the next polliwog that 
 
 came within reach, without reference at all to the 
 fact that it was not the same polliwog to which 
 the first mouthful belonged. Meantime, the other 
 dragon-fly larvae on the bottom of the jar were 
 taking their meals in much the same fashion.
 
 DREDGING NOTES. 7 
 
 S'.ich a sight gives one an idea of the multitudes 
 of little tragedies that are enacted below the sur- 
 faces of ponds by these ferocious-looking larvae 
 and their victims. 
 
 But vengeance frequently overtakes the mur- 
 derers. When the time draws nigh for moulting 
 the skin and appearing with wings, then is the 
 critical period of dragon-fly life. I recollect one 
 wretch of a larva, that had spent his water-life as 
 a blood-thirsty tyrant over the smaller creatures : 
 but when the time arrived for moulting, he did 
 not bravely crawl up a stick out of the water, and, 
 seizing the end of the stick with his six legs, pro- 
 ceed to make an opening in the upper part of his 
 back, and come out of that improvised door, after 
 the common manner of dragon-flies. He seemed 
 to be in a very excited frame of mind, climbed 
 the stick, tumbled off on the floor, and crawled 
 vigorously around in all directions, evidently in 
 great trouble. At last, after half a day or more 
 of such excited actions, he did manage to break a 
 way through his casement and come forth ; but, 
 alas, he was never able to straighten out more 
 than one of his four wings. The others remained 
 immature, or wrapped around his body, and all 
 his efforts were unavailing. He died in the 
 struggle, and the ants were his undertakers. 
 
 None of the smaller dragon-fly larvae of the 
 Ar/rioni<l(t\ that I have ever seen make their en- 
 trance into the air-world, have had such trouble
 
 8 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 as the larger ones seein sometimes subject to. 
 The moult is often over, and the dragon-fly is 
 ready for flight in an hour or two from the time 
 of the beginning of the performance. It is easy 
 to know when one of the larvae is about to moult, 
 since, for a day or less before this event, the 
 larvae are in the habit of crawling up the stick 
 that is always left in the jar to serve as a sort of 
 ladder, and of staying near the surface of the 
 water, occasionally putting their heads out into 
 the air. It is an interesting sight to watch the 
 dragon-fly, after moulting, when the wings are 
 gradually being drawn out to their full size, the 
 fine veinings slowly becoming . more and more 
 distinct, spots of green or blue, markings of brown 
 and yellow, or shades of pink and straw-color are 
 making their appearance, while the dragon-fly oc- 
 casionally lifts one foot and passes it over its 
 head, moving the joint of the neck and bobbing 
 the head up and down, as if to be sure that it is 
 securely fastened on, and has not become loose in 
 the pulling off of that skin overcoat. 
 
 Once in a while a dragon-fly makes a mistake, 
 and leaves one leg behind him in his haste to get 
 out of his old dress ; but there is no going back 
 and looking in pockets for anything that may be 
 missed. Such a dragon-fly is henceforth five- 
 footed, and seems to suffer but little inconven- 
 ience from the lack of the sixth member, except 
 that in crawling there appears to be an inclina-
 
 DREDGING NOTES. 
 
 9 
 
 tion to tip slightly toward the side that has not 
 enough support. The small dragon-fly larvae seem 
 to be a fraction less ferocious than the large ones, 
 and to them we owe a debt of gratitude, since 
 they make a point of consuming as many mos- 
 quito-larvse as can be obtained. 
 
 The mask of the dragon-fly is somewhat like 
 that ancient implement known as a " catch-poll," 
 wherewith officers of the law were wont to appre- 
 hend criminals who were taking to their feet for 
 liberty. The poll- 
 part of the instru- 
 ment being about 
 feet lorn 
 
 six 
 
 was 
 
 fitted with an ingen- 
 ious steel apparatus 
 at the end consist- 
 ing of two V-shaped 
 arms and a collar. 
 The arms being flex- 
 ible the head of the 
 offender was allowed 
 to slip past them, 
 but when the collar 
 was once around his 
 neck he was securely held, and then the officer 
 calmly dragged his victim to prison, or pushed 
 him there, as suited the offended administrator 
 of the law. Some collars of the "catch-polls" 
 had rows of sharp spikes set round them, so that 
 
 Mask of Libellula dragon-fly larva.
 
 10 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 if the offenders struggled they might be hurt. 
 But the dragon-fly larva's " catch-poll " disposes 
 of the offender at once. 
 
 Woe is me ! A piping voice cleaves the air. 
 
 " You catching fish ? " 
 
 Verily, the nature of the small boy has not 
 changed much since Wood wrote : " At the best 
 of times the microscopic angler is sure to be beset 
 with inquisitive boys of all sizes, who cannot be- 
 lieve that any one can use a net in a pond except 
 for the purpose of catching fish, and is therefore 
 liable to have his sanity called in question, and 
 his proceedings greatly disturbed." Wood goes 
 on to give as a remedy for this evil the adminis- 
 tration to the small boy of " soft-sawder and a 
 few pence." Perhaps the California boy is not 
 so avaricious as his English cousin. At least, I 
 have usually found the first half of this prescrip- 
 tion sufficient, without the administration of the 
 second. 
 
 Truth compels me to state, however, that some 
 of my small allies have assisted me with the not 
 improbable hope that some little fish might come 
 up with the beetles in the dredger, and that these 
 fish might become the property of the boys, who 
 are prone to have wild hopes of raising fish in 
 tin cans, albeit such schemes usually end in the 
 fish's living a few days on bread-crumbs, and then 
 expiring, to the owner's grief. 
 
 But the small boy, when once enlisted in the
 
 DREDGING NOTES. 11 
 
 work, becomes a most enthusiastic ally. In fact, 
 he soon ceases to occupy that position, and be- 
 comes commander of the expedition himself. So 
 very enthusiastic does he become at times, that 
 he splashes around in such a manner as to im- 
 press even the most stupid kinds of bugs with 
 the idea that danger is near, and consequently 
 they seek their hiding-places with such rapidity 
 that search after them sometimes is useless, in 
 spite of the small boy's well-meant zeal. This in- 
 dividual is useful, however, in reaching for spe- 
 cimens, which can be had only by standing in 
 muddy places, or on precipitous declivities where 
 a woman might find difficult footing. I owe at 
 least one good specimen of a water-inhabitant to 
 a small boy's zeal a fact that I have often 
 thought of with compunction, inasmuch as, just 
 before receiving the specimen, I had publicly 
 reviled this same small boy as being one "who 
 intended to keep my dredger all day and allow 
 me no use of it whatever. But the three brown- 
 headed intruders who now plunge clown the bank 
 have urgent business on hand. 
 
 "What are you after?" I ask, by way of re- 
 turn catechism. 
 
 " Red-legs," responds one freckled urchin, mak- 
 ing a dive into the brook, and on being questioned 
 further, it appears that this is the name of a spe- 
 cies of frog that the boys hope to sell for a fabu- 
 lous sum to a mysterious Frenchman. But no
 
 12 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 such frog appears, and the}' run on farther up the 
 creek to continue their search. 
 
 Here and there, on the leaves or chips that 
 float in the water, or on the grasses that hang 
 into the stream, one finds clear, yellowish jelly 
 drops, as big as dew-drops, or perhaps larger. 
 To those who have kept these drops and seen 
 their final outcome, they are known as the eggs 
 of the common pond-snail. Dear to my memory 
 is the first little pond-snail that ever hatched in 
 my own bottle of snail-eggs. How eagerly from 
 day to day I had gazed into the depths of the 
 water in my bottle, hoping amid the grains of 
 sand and specks of leaves to see some move- 
 ment indicating life, and how rapturously, on the 
 twenty-sixth day of my search, did I see through 
 my microscope the motion of a little thing about 
 half as big as a pin-head. The speck grew, and 
 behold, it had a wonderful little shell, and, at 
 last, one day I attained the height of my ambi- 
 tion in snail-culture, for I scraped the clinging 
 sand from the minute object, and there was re- 
 vealed to my admiring gaze the baby snail, the 
 little black whorls of its tiny shell as perfect as 
 those of the biggest of the family. 
 
 There are three kinds of snails that I have 
 found in this brook; the "left-hand/' the flat, 
 and the " right - hand " snails. They all have 
 the same meek, quiet nature. In regard to their 
 appellations, if you hold the shell of one of these
 
 DREDGING NOTES. 13 
 
 snails with the apex up and the opening facing 
 you, that opening may seem to be either on the 
 left or on the right ; that is, it may be either a 
 sinistral aperture or a clextral one. If the former, 
 the snail belongs to the Physa division. You 
 can see such snails floating wrong side up in these 
 pools, taking a swim after their own peculiar 
 fashion. I think that while on these swimming 
 excursions the snails are sometimes brought into, 
 contact with the polliwogs. I saw a pond-snail 
 swimming once when a polliwog was very persis- 
 tent in his attentions to it as it floated on top of 
 the water. A boy who was with me was much 
 interested in the performance, thinking, I sup- 
 pose, that the snail was about to be eaten. 
 
 The snails themselves (I am now speaking of 
 Physci) are black, or very nearly that color. One 
 can observe the flesh when the snail is swimming 
 or walking. When it is dead its shell is of a 
 lighter shade, a grayish or yellowish color. 
 
 The method of swimming has been variously 
 described as " clinging with their foot to the sur- 
 face of the water," and as a " creeping on the 
 under surface of the air," that is, on the layer of 
 air next to the pond. It is a queer performance 
 to watch, for the shell and the creature in it look 
 weighty enough to sink to the bottom of the pool, 
 yet the swimming or floating goes on. 
 
 There are much smaller snails in this brook. 
 One finds them only occasionally, at least at cer-
 
 14 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 tain seasons of the year, I think. They are the 
 flat ones that have all the whorls of their shells 
 in the same plane. These snails belong to the 
 old genus Plauorbis. 
 
 It is not particularly wise to leave a snail-bottle 
 open. Close it with mosquito-bar, for otherwise 
 you will be likely to* come back after leaving your 
 bottle and find out that your biggest and there- 
 fore supposedly your most intelligent pond-snail 
 has walked out of the jar, deposited himself on 
 the steps in the hot sun, been unable to extricate 
 himself from his difficulty, and find his road back 
 to the water in the bottle, and so has perished, 
 miserably broiled to death. So much intelligence 
 has the pond-snail. 
 
 It is said that, in Rome, the present of a snail 
 on a certain festival was a symbol of renewed 
 friendship. I can well believe it, for although I 
 suppose it was a land-snail, yet snails whether on 
 the earth or in the water are most peaceable crea- 
 tures, and usually set a much better example to 
 the quarrelsome beetles than those creatures are 
 willing to follow. 
 
 Pick up any stick that you may find that has 
 lain long in the water, and you can gather pond- 
 snails from it. They hang on the water-weeds 
 also, where those dip into the pools, and if the 
 snails are gathered and kept a few days in the 
 spring, their eggs will be found on the sides of 
 the jar.
 
 
 DREDGING NOTES. 15 
 
 Yet the fact of the matter is that there is not 
 much character to a pond -snail. To slip out of 
 a mass of jelly with one's house on one's back, to 
 float on the surface of a pond, to dine on leaves 
 or confervae, to rest when weary and to journey 
 when so disposed, to retreat into one's house when 
 in danger, to pass along through life in a some- 
 what humdrum fashion with small spirit or vim 
 in one, to cleanse the pool the little one may, and 
 finally to drop down through the water and whiten 
 with one's lifeless shell the slime of the pond, to 
 have that slime close at last over one's shell and 
 leave one buried in oblivion while all the pond- 
 life goes on above one still, this is a snail's life. 
 Devoid of fighting instincts, not gifted with am- 
 bition to soar like the beetles, or to be ever in 
 sight like the skaters, treating all the pond- 
 neighbors with quiet reserve, going one's own 
 way and doing much good in the world, such is 
 the pond-snail. If he is not brilliant, he is good, 
 and what more could be asked of him ? 
 
 There is a stir in the grass at the top of the 
 bank. 
 
 "What do you s'pose she's getting?" says 
 one low voice. 
 
 A bug-hunter learns to listen and generally 
 hears much that is said about dredging. 
 
 " Fish, I guess," answers another boy, confi- 
 dently ; and they pass on, leaving me to climb 
 the bank and wend my way homeward, battling
 
 16 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 all the time with two or three obstreperous water- 
 boatmen, that with buzzings of defiance are en- 
 deavoring to climb the sides of the pail and take 
 flight back to the brook from which I have just 
 drawn them.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WATER-SCORPIOJfS. 
 
 " I do desire we may be better strangers." 
 
 As You Like It. 
 
 A SMALL boy stood beside the brook, gazing 
 intently at my exertions. His 
 cheeks were very rosy and a wide 
 patch of mud adorned either side 
 of his mouth. ^The brook evi- 
 dently had attractions for him, 
 but he was dissatisfied with the 
 present results of dredging. 
 
 " Say, did you ever catch them 
 kind of bugs that look like 
 shrimps ? " asked he, after eying 
 my bottle. " Xot just like them, 
 either. There 's one, now " and the dredger 
 came up with an ill-looking scorpion-bug clinging 
 to it. 
 
 " One of them fellers caught hold of me once," 
 he went on, confidentially, "' right hold of my 
 thumb-nail, and he just held on and pulled till 
 my thumb - nail came out. It 's growed again, 
 though," and, in proof of his thrilling tale, he 
 
 Water-scorpion.
 
 18 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 held up to view a thumb that certainly showed 
 no trace of the dire combat described. 
 
 Scorpion-bug bearing epaulette, rather enlarged. 
 
 " What did you do with the bug ? " I asked. 
 
 " Killed him," responded the youth. 
 
 When bumble-bees buzz round the blackberry 
 blossoms in April, occasionally t>ne finds in this 
 brook a female scorpion-bug bearing her eggs on 
 her back, looking as though a second story had 
 been built on top of her, the egg-mass being some- 
 times as thick as the average scorpion - bug's 
 body. The eggs are placed regularly, standing 
 up from the wings. On one such bug's back I 
 counted one hundred and twenty-six eggs. Per- 
 haps I was slightly mistaken, as the work of 
 counting was somewhat difficult, but that must 
 have been about the number. 
 
 A bug bearing such a burden as this is easily 
 scared. Solitary confinement literally frightens 
 the creature to death. Twice I have attempted 
 to keep such a bug alone, but within twenty-four 
 hours or so the poor prisoner would be found
 
 WATER-SCORPIONS. ' 19 
 
 floating, dead. Mrs. Scorpion-Bug evidently ob- 
 jects to being monarch of all she surveys. 
 
 Some scorpion-bugs carry merely a few eggs, 
 and do not cover their backs entirely. One of 
 my scorpion-bugs used to go wandering around 
 the bottle carrying half-a-dozen eggs or so as a 
 kind o.f epaulette on her right shoulder, the rest 
 of her back being bare. A full covering of eggs 
 makes a scorpion look as though she had the un- 
 even, brown outside of an acorn-cup on her back. 
 One finds these cast-off egg-foundations in the 
 water. The eggs do not seem to be very tightly 
 fastened to the bug's back, and hitting against 
 other beetles or pieces of wood loosens the egg- 
 mass till it comes off whole and floats in the 
 water. 
 
 If one of these egg-burdened bugs dies, the 
 egg-mass may easily be separated from her back, 
 but I do not think that the eggs will hatch. At 
 least, my experiments in trying to keep such eggs 
 till hatching have proved unsuccessful. Occa- 
 sionally I have found in the jar on a stick eggs 
 of the same shape evidently deposited by other 
 scorpion - bugs. The baby scorpion - bugs are 
 miniatures of their parents, looking a little like 
 a lot of infant squash -bugs that had suddenly 
 taken a fancy to swimming. Once in a while 
 one will see a youthful bug catch a tadpole half 
 as big as himself. Mosquito-wrigglers form part 
 of the bill of fare also.
 
 20 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 But the lives of the infant murderers are gen- 
 erally short in my bottles. The young scorpion- 
 bugs stay about the surface of the water, heads 
 downward, and the bigger bugs evidently consider 
 them as so many joints of meat hung up at the 
 butchers to be hastily disposed of by customers. 
 The baby scorpions must do a deal of dodging 
 about in the brook. 
 
 I believe that it is Herodotus who, among 
 other truthful accounts of the Neuroi who once 
 a year become were-wolves, and the Argippaioi 
 who were bald and snub-nosed from their birth, 
 speaks also of the Issedones who, according to his 
 account, used to devour their dead parents with 
 great pomp and ceremony. This order of things 
 is quite reversed among the Water - scorpions ; 
 that is, the parents devour the children, but there 
 is no pomp and ceremony about the performance. 
 And from all I have seen I have no doubt that 
 the infants would willingly follow the custom of 
 the Issedones if size would permit. 
 
 The large scorpion-bugs, when kept in a bottle, 
 have a habit of choosing some chip or bit of wood 
 and using it as a raft, half-a-dozen or so of the 
 bugs climbing upon it and going sailing up and 
 down from the surface to the bottom of the water, 
 back and forth, on their improvised bark. One 
 does not see the other water-inhabitants taking 
 such rides, as a general thing. The only excep- 
 tions that I remember are the " Whirligig "
 
 WATER-SCORPIONS. 21 
 
 beetles, and their rafts are as much smaller as 
 they themselves are smaller than the scorpion- 
 bugs. Other water - creatures crawl over the 
 pieces of wood, to be sure, but they do not seem 
 to care about sailing. It seems to be an amuse- 
 ment original with the scorpion-bugs. 
 
 If one comes upon the jar suddenly, one will 
 see the scorpions making a hurried descent to the 
 bottom of the jar, their wicked-looking front legs 
 thrust out before them. Arriving at the bottom 
 and becoming assured almost immediately that 
 there is no real danger, they seize something, 
 perhaps a cast-off egg-foundation, and rise with it 
 to the surface of the water once more. Scorpion- 
 bugs have a habit, when sitting or hanging on a 
 piece of wood in the water, of passing the front 
 feet over the head, as one sees a fly do. 
 
 These water -scorpions have often a peculiar 
 sign that precedes their death. A few days be- 
 fore that event the body gapes wide open, as 
 though the creature had been sliced by a knife 
 which had been passed horizontally under the 
 wings, between them and the body, leaving the two 
 pressed widely apart. This gaping of the body 
 is generally, though perhaps not always, a fatal 
 sign, and it is certainly a very noticeable one. 
 When the cold days of winter come, one will some- 
 times find the bottom of the jar covered with dead 
 scorpion-bugs, their bodies gaping wide open. 
 
 But words cannot describe the horrifying ap-
 
 22 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 pearance of lively scorpion-bugs. One might well 
 think a company of them to be a sight of the 
 " nightmare and her ninefold." However, I think 
 that most of their threatening actions are merely 
 expressions of fright, they being as anxious to 
 escape as most people are to let them go. But 
 this variety, the length of which is only about 
 thirteen sixteenths of an inch and the width six 
 or seven sixteenths in the broadest part of the 
 back, becomes insignificant when one thinks of its 
 
 Belostoma grandis. 
 
 near Brazilian relative, Belostoma grand i*< a full- 
 grown specimen of which is about five inches 
 long, the wings when spread measuring from tip 
 to tip more than seven inches. Methinks it 
 might require some courage to explore a Brazil-
 
 WATER-SCORPIONS. 
 
 23 
 
 ian brook, since one is apt to give a nervous 
 jump now and then even after one has kept these 
 small scorpion-bugs in captivity for months and 
 has become somewhat accustomed to their alarm- 
 ing appearance and actions. 
 
 The water-scorpions of this brook do not pos- 
 sess the thin breathing-tube with which the bod- 
 ies of some (^Nepa) of this family terminate. I 
 found in this water, however, one tube - bearing 
 member of the Nepi- 
 (1(1. a Ranatra. As all 
 know who have found 
 this creature, Ranatra 
 is long and lank, look- 
 ing like a quite thick 
 black darning - needle 
 that had taken to itself 
 six bent pine-needles 
 for legs and two more 
 for breathing -tube. 
 My Ranatra was about 
 two - a"nd-a-half inches 
 long, and his thin self 
 bore no resemblance at 
 
 all to his cousins, the flat, broad, brown scor- 
 pion-bugs. 
 
 Poor Ranatra ! " The best in this kind are 
 but shadows." It was difficult for people, on his 
 first acquaintance, to believe that he was really 
 " done." He looked more like the skeleton
 
 24 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 framework of an insect than like a finished bug. 
 I remember once having explained the metamor- 
 phoses of the larvae of a water-beetle and of those 
 of dragon-flies to a looker at my captives, and, 
 at the end of my zealous discourse, the listener 
 pointed through the glass at poor Ranatra and 
 said, " And what does that one turn into ? " 
 
 In Wood's " Trespassers, ' the naturalist men- 
 tions a Ranatra that was caught by a girl and 
 named " Daddy," . from its resemblance to a 
 Daddy-long-legs fly without wings. The natu- 
 ralist goes on to say that Daddy and the girl 
 had fights together, in which the girl irritated 
 the insect with a pencil, and Daddy struck 
 back again. " The courage of Daddy and the 
 force of the blows which he delivered on the 
 pencil were well worthy of notice." 
 
 My mind being wrought up by this account of 
 battle, I resolved to wage war boldly with my 
 Ranatra, also. The choice of weapons being mine, 
 I took a white stick and proceeded to make all 
 manner of passes and raps at Ranatra. But I 
 grieve to state that Ranatra was a coward. This 
 was certainly true. He fled dismayed from the 
 combat, and, standing upside down, endeavored 
 to hide his head in a hole. Perseveringly I chased 
 him from his hiding-places, but not a blow would 
 he give back. Peaceable creature! The only 
 time that I ever knew him to manifest what could 
 be construed as, perchance, gestures of meek-
 
 WATER-SCORPIONS. 25 
 
 mannered anger was when I prodded him mali- 
 ciously until he was forced to let go his hold on a 
 beetle, the life- juice of which he was in the rap- 
 tures of sucking. This bold interference with his 
 dinner-rights caused a few clawings with his fore- 
 legs, but that was all. 
 
 Ranatra's long breathing-tube was quite flexi- 
 ble, being attached to the body in such a way that 
 he could allow some stick or leaf to bend it at 
 quite an angle, until one dreaded the next minute 
 seeing the tube snap off, and wondered what in 
 the world Ranatra would do then. Yet no acci- 
 dent ever happened. 
 
 His second and third pairs of thin legs were 
 fringed with very fine hairs, scarcely noticeable 
 without the microscope, unless seen in the right 
 light. He could hold up his fore feet in the same 
 reverential attitude that the land-insect, the Man- 
 tis, employs when waiting for prey, when, as old 
 De Mouffet said, " It alwaies holds up its fore feet 
 like hands, praying as it were after the manner 
 of the Diviners, who in that gesture did pour out 
 their supplications to their gods." The attitude 
 had about as much religious significance in my 
 Kanatra as in the Mantis. Small dragon-fly lar- 
 vae (Agrion) were tid-bits for Ranatra. His 
 rounded head with its sharp bill was very sug- 
 gestive of that of a minute bird. His eyes were 
 very prominent, standing out in round, black balls 
 upon his head.
 
 26 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 If ever a bug was a hypocrite it was Kanatra. 
 I have seen him when a water-boatman would 
 come and perch on his back. Ranatra would be 
 perfectly quiet. He knew he had been taken for 
 a stick, which he so much resembled, and a stick 
 he would be. And when the water-boatman sud- 
 denly took to its oars once more, not the slightest 
 motion showed that Ranatra was alive. He 
 would hang poised over an unconscious bug, like 
 Damocles' sword, but, though long delayed, at 
 some sudden moment, the sword became alive, 
 and piercing the unfortunate bug finished its life. 
 
 I think Ranatra had no music in his soul, and 
 he probably never missed the bird-twitterings of 
 his native brook. As a personal favor and a 
 reminder of the days when he lived in the creek, 
 I sometimes took a flute and played " 'Way down 
 upon the Swanee River " close to his jar. But 
 the calmness with which he received the serenade 
 was only equal to that with which he usually sur- 
 veyed the world when no music was going on. 
 Neither the " growly " nor the " squeaky " parts 
 of the piano affected his nerves, even when his 
 bottle was placed touching the instrument next 
 the keys. It was fitting, however, that music 
 should have no charms for such a deceiver as 
 Ranatra. Does not Shakespeare say, 
 
 " The " (bug) " that hath no music in himself, 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ? "
 
 WATER-SCORPIONS. 27 
 
 For all of which Ranatra was most eminently 
 fitted. Many a time had I thought Ranatra 
 dead, but the rascal came to life a few minutes 
 afterward. So, one day, when I had had him in 
 my possession about nine months, I hardly be- 
 lieved him dead upon finding him lying prone in 
 the water. He had shammed so much that I 
 hustled him around shamefully before I believed 
 the fact of his decease. But Ranatra was truly 
 dead this time. I put him in a separate jar of 
 water, having a faint hope that he might revive 
 during the night, but in the morning he was still 
 limp, and a couple of pond-snails, one on each 
 side of him, were performing the last kind of- 
 fice for the dead in cleansing Ranatra from the 
 green scum that had attached itself to him. 
 
 Peace to his ashes. I did not know how I 
 loved him until he died. Never did I part from 
 a bug with such regret. No post-mortem exami- 
 nation that I could have made would have revealed 
 the cause of his death. Perhaps it was old age, 
 since he was fully grown to all appearances when 
 I found him, and wise men tell us that the life of 
 an insect is often not much more than a year in 
 length. It may be he was Ranatra the Aged. 
 The jar looked lonely withgut him, he had lived 
 in it so long, and I felt half inclined to think 
 that, in spite of his having dwelt with them so 
 securely for so long a time, he had at last fallen 
 a victim to some of those cowardly cousins of his,
 
 28 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 the scorpion-bugs. They rushed about as usual, 
 evidently caring nothing for the death of the bug 
 that was worth twenty of them. 
 
 Even in death Ranatra kept those fore feet held 
 up in their customary reverential attitude. It 
 was enough to excite superstition, if a superstitious 
 person had seen him. The Rabbis have said that 
 locusts were made out of the superfluous earth 
 that was left over after the making of Adam. 
 Mayhap if the Rabbis had known Ranatra, they 
 might have told some like marvellous tale of him. 
 The Rabbis were gifted with originality of state- 
 ment, to say the least, for did they not say that, 
 when Adam wept after the fall, though every 
 beast and bird hastened to mingle their tears with 
 his, yet the locust arrived first, on account of its 
 kindred origin with Adam? And, furthermore, 
 are not the black marks on the locust's wings 
 Hebrew characters, wherein may be read this : 
 " God is One ; He overcometh the mighty ; the 
 locusts are a portion of His army which He sends 
 against the wicked " ? 
 
 To be sure, Ben Omar says that the prophet 
 Mohammed read the Hebrew characters differ- 
 ently, for he made them out to signify this : 
 " We are the troops of the Most High God ; we 
 each lay ninety-nine eggs. If we were to lay a 
 hundred we should devastate the whole world." 
 On account of the great alarm that these mys- 
 terious words raised in the mind of the Prophet
 
 WA TER-SCORPI ONS. 29 
 
 it was granted that an invocation addressed to 
 Mohammed, and written on a piece of paper en- 
 closed in a reed planted in the midst of a wheat- 
 field or of an orchard, has the power to turn 
 away the destructive hordes of locusts from the 
 portion of the land so protected. 
 
 And when I recollect that the Rabbis were 
 capable of making additions to the Scriptures so 
 startling as that in the Targums which says that 
 when the plague of locusts in the land of Egypt 
 was disappearing before the wind, those insects 
 that the Egyptians had fried or pickled and laid 
 by in store for food were blown away from the 
 land in company with the live ones, I am not 
 capable of imagining what those Rabbis might 
 not have said of Ranatra, had they known that 
 singular-looking bug. I flatter myself that they 
 did not have the pleasure of his acquaintance. 
 Surely if they had they would have mentioned it. 
 They usually mentioned everything they did know, 
 and perhaps a little more. Ranatra did not real- 
 ize how thankful he ought to have been that the 
 Rabbis never saw him. Preposterous, indeed, 
 would have been the story they would have tacked 
 to his name. Ranatra made a beautiful corpse, 
 calm and peaceful-looking. 
 
 Let no evil be remembered against him. lie 
 is dead. 
 
 " Bid him farewell, commit him to the grave ; 
 Do him that kindness aud take leave of Irnc."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 
 
 IT is March. Let us go dredging for Water- 
 Lovers, alias Hydrophllidce. As one conies to 
 the brook on such a day, one may 
 glance across the ravine, and, sud- 
 denly, in between one's self and the 
 
 California vision of green fields and buttercups 
 
 Hydrophi- ... 
 
 Hdce. will come some fluttering wings, and 
 
 a dainty-looking dark-brown butterfly 
 with buff-colored margins, and a row of pale-blue 
 spots inside those margins but too small to be no- 
 ticeable at this distance, sits down on the opposite 
 bank to sun itself beside the stream. The but- 
 terfly that our English friends call the Camber- 
 well Beauty Vanessa Antiopa has come to 
 look after our dredging. This creature flaps over 
 our back-yards the last of February, and instead 
 of appearing " with ragged and faded wings," as 
 Harris says that this Vanessa does at the East, 
 it here often looks as fresh and new as if just 
 made. 
 
 One day I heard a sad tale about this Vanessa 
 from two young sinners of twelve years old or so 
 that I found enjoying a solitary cigarette between
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 31 
 
 them in the seclusion of one part of this brook. 
 The lads were mightily interested in my dredging, 
 albeit they looked at me as though they expected 
 that I would begin a sermon on the evils of to- 
 bacco. But what is the use of scolding people 
 who are so evidently aware of their own sinful- 
 ness ? 
 
 I refrained from criticism, and was rewarded 
 with a bit of information, false or true. A Va- 
 nessa of this sort flew by in the course of our 
 conversation, and the boys called it a Japanese 
 butterfly. They furthermore solemnly averred 
 that the Japanese ate them. One of the boys 
 even said that he had seen the Japanese do it, 
 pulling off the wings and devouring the body. 
 Whether the testimony of such youngsters is 
 worth anything or not, I leave the judicious 
 reader to determine, but certainly, if I were in 
 Vanessa's place, I should keep as far away from 
 both boys and Japanese as possible. 
 
 When March is nearly over, there comes an 
 occasional Orange-tip butterfly to keep Vanessa 
 company. In March, too, one passes by the little 
 white-and-black kids that stand on the sides of 
 the brook and dance along its precipices or stay 
 in the safer green field by their mothers. 
 
 Burton in his " Anatomy of Melancholy " tells 
 us that when Jupiter and Juno held their wed- 
 ding-feast all the other divinities were invited 
 and many noblemen besides, and among them
 
 32 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 came a Persian prince named Chrysalus, a very 
 simple person, but gorgeously arrayed in golden 
 attire. And the assembly, seeing him come with 
 such pomp, were deceived, and rose up to give 
 place to so noble a being. But Jupiter, seeing 
 what a fantastic, idle fellow he was, turned him 
 and his followers into butterflies, greatly to the 
 astonishment of the guests, no doubt. If this be 
 true, how comes it that Vanessa Antiopa wears 
 black ? Did Vanessa go to the wedding-feast 
 wearing mourning ? 
 
 It is a sad fact that butterflies are intemperate 
 at times. To see the beautiful things flit by one 
 would never think them guilty of such indiscre- 
 tion. But a friend of mine informed me that 
 just beyond these foot-hills he had seen one kind 
 of butterfly on the buckeye-trees and could almost 
 have taken the creatures with his hand. He sup- 
 posed them to have been intoxicated with the 
 fragrant flowers. I can well believe it, for, if I 
 were a butterfly myself, it seems to me no flower 
 would delight me more than the dense white 
 panicles of the buckeye. Mr. Scudder gives a 
 similar instance of the Tiger Swallow-tail butter- 
 flies being overcome with lilac blossoms. 
 
 If you look across the brook, you may see a 
 man who fully realizes Bacon's assertion, that 
 mustard-seed " hath in it a property and spirit 
 hastily to get up and spread," for that laborer is 
 gathering the yellow - flowered weed, and has a
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 33 
 
 bundle of it at his side. Down by the water's 
 edge the blackberries are in bloom, and in the 
 grass on the sides are tufts of sorrel, reminding 
 one of ancient Gerarde and his assertion that 
 the wood-sorrel was of old called " Allelujah," or 
 " Cuckoo's Meat," because, says the old herbalist, 
 "when it springeth forth, the Cuckoo singeth 
 most ; at which time also Allelujahs were wont 
 to be sung in our churches." 
 
 Here comes the first Water - Lover in the 
 dredger. Once I tried to keep a colony of these 
 ffydrophilidcG. They lived in a pickle-jar, and 
 there were twenty-two of them. At least, after 
 repeated attempts to take the census of the in- 
 habitants of that jar, twenty-two was the number 
 decided upon, it being somewhat difficult to count 
 beetles that are in constant motion, and that are 
 identical in appearance as far as one can see. 
 Each beetle was three eighths of an inch long, one 
 fourth wide, and appeared somewhat hump-backed. 
 The upper, convex surface was black, as was the 
 under surface of the beetle, but the latter usually 
 appeared in the light as if covered with liquid 
 silver, an effect produced by the air taken under 
 water by the insects. The middle and hind pairs 
 of legs were hairy, and all three pairs were armed 
 with double spurs, some of them sufficiently power- 
 ful to feel, when applied to one's finger, much like 
 a pin's prick. 
 
 Inspired by the gift of some weeds from their
 
 34 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 native brook, the colony of twenty-two set up 
 housekeeping. Unlike other beetles in neighbor- 
 ing jars of water, these twenty-two unanimously 
 rejected the custom, fashionable among many 
 water-creatures, of breathing through the abdo- 
 men, and, instead, on making their ascents to 
 the surface of the water, put up their heads after 
 the manner of Hydrophilidce usually. 
 
 Although commonly silent these beetles were 
 capable, when displeased, or when frightened by 
 the danger of capture, of giving squeaks that 
 might be heard across an ordinary room. These 
 squeaks sounded somewhat like the shrieks of a 
 fly when imprisoned in a spider's web, or like the 
 croaks of a feeble- voiced toad. They were par- 
 tially quiet when living by themselves, but .from 
 a jar of mixed beetles and bugs the shrieks were 
 frequently heard. 
 
 Not long after the twenty-two set up house- 
 keeping, there began to appear, on sticks and 
 leaves in the jar, white egg-cases, as large as 
 beans, or three eighths of an inch long, and a little 
 more than one eighth in diameter, woven of white 
 silk in a cylindrical shape and having sometimes 
 a thin floating strip of white hanging from the 
 top of the egg-cases. This strip was sometimes 
 about five eighths of an inch long, and occasionally 
 when an egg was taken out of the water the strip 
 would fall back over the closed opening. One 
 unacquainted with these eggs might think that
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 
 
 35 
 
 only the wasteful beetles added this strip, the 
 more economical ones refusing to expend silk 
 
 Eggs of Hydrophilidce ( Calif ornian) as laid in my bottle. Eggs 
 with and without floating strip. 
 
 in making an addition that was apparently of 
 no use. 
 
 If some too-hasty mortal, wishing to perceive
 
 36 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 what was inside of such an egg, opened it before 
 the proper time, his curiosity was disappointed 
 by finding only some little, yellow, oblong specks. 
 The eggs often hatched in about thirty days from 
 the time of laying. There issued from the first 
 egg that appeared in the HydrophUidcB bottle 
 a number of queer, wriggling larvae, about one 
 eighth of an inch long. 
 
 And as children will show what their parents 
 were, so these lively larvae soon let out the secret 
 that the black beetles had not by any means 
 always pursued the noiseless tenor of their way, 
 satisfied with water-weeds and an occasional nib- 
 ble at a departed earth-worm. The family traits 
 showed themselves, and the Hydrophilidce stood 
 convicted of no less a crime than murder. No 
 vegetable diet was sufficient for the appetites of 
 these little squirming Iarva3, that, 
 with their branching pincers pro- 
 jecting from either side of their 
 heads, wandered around the surface 
 
 hi- of the w f ter '. occasionally meeting 
 and bunting into each other, inter- 
 locking horns like a couple of inimical goats. 
 
 Those little black worms that have a habit, 
 when confined in bottles, of inching up the sides 
 of the glass until above the water, had great 
 enemies in these larvae. These worms are the 
 larvae of a variety of gnat, and their pupae, in- 
 stead of being lively, like the "tumblers" of or-
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 37 
 
 dinary mosquitoes, are quiet, black, round, and 
 rather hard. 
 
 No sooner did one such worm descend from his 
 height in order to make a voyage from one side 
 of the bottle to the other than his path was beset 
 with danger. The horns of the larvae pointed 
 toward him, and it became a question whether the 
 worm would be a successful mariner or whether 
 the dangers of the deep would be his undoing. If 
 the latter, some pair of tiny nippers closed upon 
 him, and the successful larva raised the victim 
 aloft. But one larva should not be greedy, and 
 his brethren all rushed to the feast, and soon the 
 unfortunate worm was claimed by a number of 
 larvae, and, until the last vestige of that worm 
 disappeared, the pulling and fighting went on. 
 Often, however, the voyage ended successfully, 
 and the worm would inch up the glass on the 
 other side, leaving the larvae wondering where he 
 had gone to. 
 
 But murder of other creatures was not the only 
 crime committed in that jar. Fratricide pre- 
 vailed, until, at last, one larva remained, the sole 
 ruler of the bottle, the survivor of his brethren, 
 illustrating in himself the doctrine of the Survival 
 of the Fittest, 
 
 The Fittest did not seem to be a very bright 
 infant. Perhaps he was more deficient in intel- 
 lect than Hi/flrophilidaB children usually are, but, 
 at times in his career, I doubted whether, if he
 
 38 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 had been living in a brook and forced to seek his 
 meals for himself, he could have succeeded in 
 catching anything. I was his devoted slave and 
 feeder. Everything he ate I put into his mouth. 
 
 It was not that the Fittest was not willing 
 enough, but he was clumsy. He waddled, with 
 the hinder part of his body held above, much 
 after the manner of a misdirected parasol, while 
 his six legs paddled through the water, and his 
 horns turned stupidly toward any prey that he 
 dimly saw. He had caught his brethren because 
 they were as stupid as he, but many things were 
 quicker. Mosquito larvae utterly foiled him, dart- 
 ing by before he could begin to turn his horns in 
 their direction. 
 
 The black-headed worm had a trick that always 
 completely fooled the Fittest. No matter how vig- 
 orously that worm had been wriggling, if it came 
 next to the Fittest's horns it remained perfectly 
 still ; and the Fittest, with that sublime stupidity 
 that characterized him, would pass that worm 
 by as though it were not alive. In fact, I began 
 to think that the only thing the Fittest did per- 
 ceive was motion ; shape was beyond his mental 
 powers. If a thing wriggled, he thought it was 
 food ; if not, it was nothing of interest to him. 
 The black-headed worm was infinitely ahead of 
 the Fittest in intellect. 
 
 The only way I made sure that my captive 
 had any food was to take a straw and carefully
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 39 
 
 steer one of the black-headed worms to the harbor 
 within the Fittest's horns. Then, feeling my 
 straw tickle, the worm would forget its caution 
 and wriggle directly before the Fittest's little 
 black eyes, and then he saw at last the meaning 
 of my efforts and was soon waving his victim in 
 triumph. 
 
 After one of these enforced meals, the Fittest 
 descended on a day to the bottom of the water in 
 the tooth-powder dish where he resided and in- 
 dulged in a season of meditation. He disdained 
 to eat, and only occasionally varied his medita- 
 tions with strolls around the floor of his home. 
 These strolls exhibited one of the Fittest's accom- 
 plishments : he could travel backward as well as 
 forward. He was also as flexible as the Japanese 
 boy one sees at acrobatic entertainments ; he 
 co^ild make a perfect ring of himself. Did some 
 invisible speck of dirt attach itself to his tail dur- 
 ing his promenades, all the Fittest had to do 
 was to bend his head straight back over his back, 
 take hold of his tail, and, straightway removing 
 the trouble with his pincers, go on with his pil- 
 grimage in peace. 
 
 Harmless as the Fittest was, he must have had 
 some terrors for a minute May -fly larva that 
 dwelt in the same tooth-powder dish. The little 
 May-fly developed a habit of giving a rapid skip 
 and hopping over the Fittest whenever they met. 
 But, alas for the Fittest, not even a May-fly-
 
 40 UB AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 larva need fear him long. He drooped ; black- 
 headed worms lost all charms for him ; he trav- 
 elled neither backward nor forward ; grim Death 
 claimed him for his own, and a prospective beetle 
 was lost to the world. 
 
 The HydrophUidce themselves had their own 
 troubles. Opening the jar one day, I found two 
 of the beetles carrying a yellow burden apiece. 
 On examination the burdens proved to be small 
 yellow leeches that had calmly appropriated these 
 two beetles and forced them to carry them around 
 on their backs. Securing one of the beetles I at- 
 tacked its burden, but it was only after much 
 pulling and many exertions both by the beetle 
 and myself that the leech finally let go and col- 
 lapsed into a disgusted heap in one corner of the 
 spoon. During the struggle a number of baby 
 leeches had detached themselves from their par- 
 ent and were scattered over the spoon. On put- 
 ting the leeches into water the children gradually 
 began to come back and cling once more to the 
 larger leech. I had a similar struggle with the 
 leech attached to the other beetle, but the young 
 leeches were smaller than those in the first in- 
 stance. Think of the sorrows of a poor beetle in 
 a pond, with no friendly hand to take such a life- 
 menacing burden from his back. 
 
 After diligent search, another larva was fished 
 from the pool in which the Hydrophilidce, had 
 their former residence, and was brought home to
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 41 
 
 fill the place of the Fittest. This the larva could 
 more than do, as far as size was concerned, being 
 at least four times as large as his predecessor. 
 The surroundings of this larva were more favor- 
 able than those of the Fittest had been, inasmuch 
 as on some water-weeds in the jar of the new 
 larva were a number of the small crustaceans 
 allied to beach-fleas and known as " f resh-water- 
 shrimps," which were to serve as the larva's des- 
 tined prey. Their often slow movements were 
 just suited to the larva's mind. There was no 
 such levity about them as about a black-headed 
 worm. The larva could walk carefully along 
 the weed, and, coming upon a water-shrimp un- 
 awares, grasp it with those pincers of his and 
 devour his prey. He would elevate the shrimp, 
 above his head out of the water, and in some mys- 
 terious manner manage to keep his tail out of 
 water too, in order to breathe, while the main 
 part of his body was under water ; and, in this 
 position, he devoured his meal, moulding the 
 water-shrimp between his pincers as one might a 
 bit of gum. One water-shrimp that 1 timed him 
 on was eaten in seventeen minutes. His appetite 
 for these creatures was good. In a little time 
 after eating one, this Devourer wanted another. 
 Perhaps a taste of this congenial food might have 
 saved the life of the Fittest. Howbeit, water- 
 shrimps are not all of life, and the Devourer 
 must have longed for something more, for " one
 
 42 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 morn 1 missed him on the accustomed " weed, 
 nor yet upon his stick nor in the jar was he. 
 Had he fled ? The mosquito-bar over the mouth 
 of his jar showed no trace of his passage. Had 
 he departed this life ? Diligent search among the 
 debris in the bottom of his jar failed to bring 
 to light his corpse. The fate of the Devourer 
 will ever remain a mystery. Sufficient was it to 
 know that this second attempt at raising beetle 
 was a failure. There was, however, a rumor of the 
 assassination of the Devourer by water-shrimps. 
 
 A great many books of reference speak of the 
 Hydrophilidce as entirely herbivorous when ma- 
 ture beetles. Dead flesh, however, hath charms 
 for some of these reputedly strict vegetarians. I 
 have seen one of these Hydrophilidce so interested 
 in a dead earth-worm that when his supply of air 
 became exhausted he would rush to the top of the 
 bottle, poke up his head, rush down again and go 
 straight to the worm and recommence the appar- 
 ent chewing off of little pieces of flesh. How- 
 ever, the Hydrophilidce get along very well when 
 shut up in a bottle with nothing but weeds, but 
 I believe that when at home in their native pools 
 they sometimes act as scavengers, not only in the 
 matter of decaying leaves but in that of dead flesh 
 as well. 
 
 Professor Karl Semper, of the University of 
 Wiirzburg, in speaking of the food of animals, 
 mentions the European pond-snail, Lymncea stag-
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 48 
 
 nalis, as often turning from its plant-eating to prey 
 upon little water-tritons, attacking quite healthy 
 specimens, overcoming and devouring them. Per 
 haps it may have been some such rebound from 
 the common habit of life that influenced the 
 beetle I observed to illustrate Professor Semper's 
 assertion that " many polyphagous species are 
 found in genera which otherwise contain none but 
 monophagous Carnivora or Herbivora." 
 
 The Water-Lovers go armed. At least it has 
 been conjectured that they do. Concealed weap- 
 ons are not forbidden in Water-Land. Safely 
 hidden underneath the body of one of these Hy- 
 drophilidm,, at the end of the sternum, is a very 
 short, somewhat sharp, black "pin," ready, it 
 might seem, to be stuck into the unfortunate crea- 
 ture that incurs this beetle's wrath. An experi- 
 enced youth whom I once discovered, or, rather, 
 who discovered me, during my dredging - hours, 
 announced to me that the Hydrophilidce, or "toe 
 pinchers," as he called them, " bit." 
 
 " How do you know ? " I asked. 
 
 " Got them on me when I went in swimming," 
 responded the wise youngster. Perhaps he had 
 felt the thrust of this same black "pin." But 
 lads' eyes are not sometimes as bright as they 
 ought to be, and I have quite a suspicion that 
 the Water-Lover and the Water-Tiger beetles are 
 confounded in the minds of many boys, since in 
 this brook the most common varieties of these two
 
 44 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 families are much the same size, and to an un- 
 practised eye are similar in appearance to each 
 other. Of course, the bug-hunters, who know the 
 two families, can distinguish them at once. 
 
 It is that way often in the insect world. The 
 hunter after " bugs " sees at first the likenesses 
 but not the differences. But when, as the reward 
 of long and close looking, the latter become plain, 
 the hunter wonders at not having seen them be- 
 fore. There is nothing like looking to sharpen 
 the eyes, and the earlier one goes about it the 
 more one will see. 
 
 Here come some more pond-snails from their 
 watery homes. Let them swim while they may, 
 for when these pools shall shortly dry up in the 
 summer-time heat, then will the patient pond- 
 snails, unable to take up their shells and fly away, 
 do the next best thing, and, with becoming forti- 
 tude, burrow into the damp ground, hoping thereby 
 to preserve their lives until water shall come again. 
 Alas, rain will be months away. 
 
 Here, likewise, come up in the dredger some 
 dark, perhaps two-inches-long leeches. There are 
 plenty of them often in the mud at the sides of 
 the stream. One can find numbers of leeches in 
 autumn by taking a shovelful of mud from the 
 pool's edge. Still, leeches are not delightful 
 pets, and these may slip back in the pool. 
 
 Let us go home, for dredging is sometimes 
 wearisome work on account of the strength it re-
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 45 
 
 quires ; but notice, as we go, how the tops of the 
 green water-weeds are decorated with the white 
 webs of these Hydrophilidce. It is strange that, 
 considering the number of eggs, the dredger does 
 not more often catch the larva?, but any one who 
 has kept such creatures knows that they are very 
 clever at concealing themselves. These egg-webs 
 are clear above the water. If one did not know 
 better one might pass them by as the webs of so 
 many spiders. M. Figuier gives the time of the 
 spinning of the egg-cases of the European Hydro- 
 phUidcB as April. Here the time is earlier, for 
 one of my beetles celebrated St. Patrick's Day, 
 March 17th, by spinning an egg-case. This is the 
 earliest egg of these beetles that I have ever seen, 
 although March 19th I found three in the brook, 
 and one looked as though it might have been laid 
 several days before. During the last ten days in 
 March one can find" many egg-webs on the reedy 
 grass that dips into the water. 
 
 These HydropMlidce do not always place the 
 eggs above the surface of the water, but, when 
 these beetles are in jars, often put the webs where 
 the} r are covered, and there is no air-tube rising 
 from each egg to the air, as in the egg-cases of the 
 large European beetles. If one drives away a 
 beetle from her work before the case is closed one 
 may look into the dainty white receptacle and see 
 the bright-yellow egg-mass. A week afterward, 
 if the beetle did not come back to finish her egg-
 
 46 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 case, one may look in and see that the egg-mass 
 has separated into several oval eggs. 
 
 How full the world is of insect-life. Most of 
 us have no idea of the number of our neighbors. 
 It seems sometimes to the bug-hunter as though 
 there would be but very few vacant rooms to rent 
 in Nature's house. And yet the insects keep com- 
 ing till even the flies take to the water. One can 
 see a multitude of little flies sitting upon the sur- 
 face of this pool sometimes. I do not know how 
 many insects there are on an average to each 
 plant in this country, but an English entomolo- 
 gist reckons that on an average there are six kinds 
 to a plant in his country. Harris thinks that 
 probably our average is less. Yet the hunter can 
 see that there is hardly a crack or cranny in the 
 bark of these trees but some insect has found it 
 out. 
 
 Go by those willows in May and you will see 
 leaves curiously connected, two or three fastened 
 together near the tips. Tear such leaves apart, 
 and lo, there is within a tiny gray weevil with 
 pointed snout. Sometimes two or three of the 
 weevils are in the same connected leaves. On 
 those willows, too, in May, one may find numer- 
 ous caterpillars, and the queer larvae of what I 
 suppose to be saw-flies, since, when touched, each 
 larva has that strange habit, peculiar to saw-fly 
 infants, of assuming curious attitudes, standing 
 on the fore part of the body, the hinder part be-
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 47 
 
 ing held out in the air with the stiffness of a 
 Sphinx caterpillar, excepting that the Sphinx 
 holds out its head instead of its hinder portion. 
 Sometimes one of these saw-fly larvae curls its 
 tail up, instead, much as a cat might curl up hers. 
 This attitude is more striking than the other, if 
 anything, for it looks almost unnatural to see the 
 larva so twisted on the leaf. The larvae hold on, 
 during all their posings, by their fore feet. The 
 color of the creatures is grayish on top, with ten 
 double yellow marks on each side. 
 
 What a queer variety there is in insects ! The 
 more one sees of them the more one wonders at 
 the marvellous diversity displayed in their appear- 
 ance and organization. Come here next month, 
 at the end of April, and, as you painfully pick 
 out the gradually fattening larvae of Hydrophili- 
 dce, there will come a middle-sized, brilliant red 
 dragon-fly whizzing almost into your very face. 
 You may now find the larvae of these insects, 
 looking much like big spiders. A little boy who 
 once saw one of them announced that it was a 
 " grasshopper," but I think that the resemblance 
 to a hairy spider is much more striking, the main 
 difference, as one glances at the larva, being that 
 a real spider has two more legs than this one. 
 These larvae, when disturbed, dig violently with 
 their fore feet as if they wished to cover them- 
 selves with mud. However the larvae are easily 
 kept if fed with earth-worms, and I have had one
 
 48 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 transform into a red dragon-fly as eai'ly as March 
 llth. Unfortunately this red 
 color is evanescent after 
 death, much more so than the 
 blue of the larger dragon-flies. 
 The cast-off, spidery skins 
 Red Dragon-fly larva, retain their shape, and around 
 the opening that the dragon- 
 fly leaves in the back on coming out are white 
 threads, looking as though they were the bast- 
 ings that held the dress together. " Wasserjung- 
 fern," " Virgins of the water," say the Germans 
 when they speak of the dragon-flies. " Snake- 
 stanger," or " snake-stang," is an old name sug- 
 gested perhaps, as Dyer thinks, by the belief that 
 the bite of the dragon-fly was as venomous as that 
 of a snake. 
 
 I do not know why the dragon-fly should have 
 so bad a reputation. The larvae are certainly 
 hideous enough to frighten people, but it hardly 
 seems as if the red, blue, or green dragon-flies 
 need be much more frightful than so many bril- 
 liant humming-birds. I do not know what 
 amount of horror might arise in the minds of 
 those who now view the dragon-fly with supersti- 
 tious fear did they know that the insect looks at 
 them through compound eyes the facets of which 
 are six-sided. 
 
 An army of teasels have marched down the hill 
 in one place almost to the borders of this brook.
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 49 
 
 Now in March, when, amid the grass of spring, 
 the dry, gray teasel stalks lie broken off or stand 
 toppling to their fall, their brittle, hollow stems 
 are still useful to the minor creatures. In many 
 of the gray towers of the stalks abide spiders, clad 
 in red and black, or the latter color only, sitting 
 in grimness, like barons in the mediaeval towers 
 of yore, and intent on the same business that 
 those gentlemen followed, the murdering of un- 
 wary travellers. Very frequently one will find a 
 lady-bug with the spider, usually a defunct lady- 
 bug, one of the kind that is red with no black 
 dots on its back. Others there are with thirteen 
 spots, and once I cut into a teasel tower contain- 
 ing a company of ants. If you look under the 
 leaves of the fresh teasels which are springing 
 up at the feet of the old ones, you may find per- 
 chance a snail, the hermit of this the Mediaeval 
 Age of Teasel Land. 
 
 Not always are the teasels friends of the insect 
 tribe, however. These broad -based leaves form 
 little hollows in which the showers deposit water 
 in which unwary creatures are sometimes drowned. 
 
 Did you ever listen to the music that a crowd 
 of dry teasel stems makes when moved by the 
 wind ? The sound is as musical as that one makes 
 by blowing through a comb. Perhaps the spiders 
 find such music lulling as the wind rocks them to 
 sleep in the teasel towers. 
 
 Hordes of small caterpillars eat the teasel leaves
 
 50 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 in June, and as one goes toward home carrying a 
 bunch of leaves for such creatures, a white billy- 
 goat near the path stretches out his head and 
 mutely begs for a teasel leaf as a variation from 
 his fare of dry grass. He munches the prickly 
 morsel with satisfaction. Who had supposed that 
 the teasels were the friends of so many creatures ? 
 
 But when the teasels bloom, myriads of butter- 
 flies haunt the white spotted heads. Here one 
 will find little clouds of butterflies springing up 
 before one while walking, and, if you look into 
 the clouds, you may see what the boys call the 
 Bull's-eye butterfly, Junonia, with its wings 
 spotted with eyes like a peacock's. Here flutter 
 blue or brown smaller ones, the representatives 
 of the LyccenidcB) and beside this stream one 
 day I found two downy, white moths, Arctiu, 
 with black spots on their wings, and abdomens 
 marked on top with six black spots and a patch 
 of orange. 
 
 In the summer time, when many of these pools 
 are dry, one may walk their beds and find the 
 butterflies resting and sunning themselves in spots 
 where, a few months before, polliwogs bobbed 
 up and down and pond-snails clung surrounded 
 by dancing beetles. " Freyja's hens," the old 
 Icelanders called the butterflies. *Freyjuhoena? 
 Since Freyja was the Norse goddess of love, it is 
 quite unlikely that a being of her sort would 
 keep such good-for-nothing hens, the goddess
 
 MY WATER-LOVERS. 51 
 
 being too much taken up with sentimental affairs 
 to be much interested in poultry raising. All 
 lovers who had been faithful unto death were 
 afterward gathered in Freyja's halls, and, though 
 the cynical might say that there probably would 
 not be much of a crowd, yet even a small as- 
 sembly of such ghosts would no doubt drive all 
 thoughts of a practical nature from the poor god- 
 dess' mind. However, Freyja's hens are as use- 
 ful as some real hens that I have had the pleasure 
 of being acquainted with.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WATER-BOATMEN. 
 
 "I' faith, you are too angry." 
 
 Tuntiny of the Shrew. 
 
 Notonecta glauca. 
 
 BUGS have tempers. I had as lief be a hornet 
 as a water -boatman. The excitable disposition 
 is just about the same. Buzz, jump, hop, defiance 
 in every motion. One day, in my absence, a way- 
 ward cat thought to lie down to calm repose upon 
 the steps where an open bottle of bugs stood. 
 But alas for that cat's calculations ! Either pussy 
 had a day-mare during her slumbers, or else she 
 sat down wrong, for thump ! went the bottle, and 
 the steps were deluged with a shower of " bugs "' 
 of all sizes and descriptions.
 
 WATER-BOATMEN. 53 
 
 " Oh, how they hopped ! " said the one who ran 
 to the rescue, in relating afterwards the mis-ad- 
 venture. " They acted as if they hated me." 
 
 And if, as I think may have been, the Water- 
 boatmen were among the suddenly-landed "bugs," 
 I have no doubt that they expressed their defi- 
 ance in a series of hops that plainly told that 
 they had " let their angry passions rise." Woe 
 to the person that receives a prick from the pro- 
 boscis of some of these creatures, for that person 
 shall suffer as though stung by a wasp. 
 
 On a sunshiny day there is great excitement in 
 the Water-boatman jar. Continued little click- 
 ings may be heard, made by the hitting of the 
 bugs' heads against the sides of the glass jar. 
 The surface of the water is surrounded with boat- 
 men that have turned right-side up and are pre- 
 paring their wings for flight. Every few minutes 
 one of them soars upward, only to have his as- 
 pirations shocked by hitting against the mosquito- 
 bar that covers the top of the bottle, and by being 
 knocked back into the water, there either to try 
 it over again or to disappear beneath the surface, 
 where it is to be hoped the cool waves quench 
 Notonecta's anger. At such times as this even 
 calm Ranatva's disposition was corrupted by the 
 evil world about him, and he elevated his head, 
 and clawed at the glass above, as if he too would 
 crawl out. Shall I set them all at liberty ? How 
 then shall I learn their habits ? Do they then
 
 54 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 languish day by day, and pine in sorrow during 
 their imprisonment ? Nay, for does not Don 
 Quixote say, " Sir, melancholy was not made for 
 beasts but for men " ? These very boatmen that 
 now are so zealous for liberty will, by and by 
 svhen the sun has gone behind that tree, sink 
 down and solace these their woes by eating water- 
 shrimps and earth-worms, and the jar-world will 
 be calm once more. How many griefs doth 
 eating assuage, not only in the bug, but in the 
 human. 
 
 All people do not admire the boatmen. Well 
 do I remember the frankness with which one 
 urchin (who had his head bound up with a rag 
 on account of au attack of poison-oak, and who 
 found me gathering Notoneetidce) exclaimed, " If 
 I was collectin' curiosities, I 'd get something 
 worth lookin' at ! " 
 
 His charming directness of speech was equalled 
 on another occasion that lingers in my memory 
 by that of an old woman, whom ! take to have 
 been a wanderer from Erin's Isle staking out her 
 goat, and who, looking upon me as I met her in 
 the path, demanded what were the contents of my 
 pail. Ignoring the suddenness of our introduction 
 to one another, I brought up fromthe depths 
 some of my beetles. 
 
 " Now," quoth the old woman, after a look at 
 the uncanny beings, " how much nicer it would be 
 for you to get fish than those things. There ai'e
 
 tt'A TER-BOA TMEN. 
 
 55 
 
 plenty of fish in the brook, and anybody can have 
 them," and she looked at ine with a benevo- 
 lently generous air, which, alas ! was quite thrown 
 away. 
 
 The eggs of the water-boatman I ha*ve found in 
 March and July on sticks in my jar. These eggs 
 are oval, white, and about one 
 sixteenth of an inch long. 
 They are sometimes in short 
 rows, but often are scattered 
 irregularly over the sticks. 
 
 One day I noticed on Ra- 
 natra's back an oval, white 
 thing, and wondered what had 
 befallen him. I fished him 
 out and looked, and lo ! it 
 was an egg laid on his back 
 by some much-deceived water- 
 boatman that had taken him 
 for a stick. Another egg 
 adorned one of his legs. Another time I found 
 Ranatra with three boatman eggs on one leg, two 
 on the leg opposite, and an old one on his back. 
 Most likely these were the eggs of a lady boat- 
 man that was afterwards numbered among Rana- 
 tra's victims. How touching a spectacle to see 
 the mother confiding to her murderer the future 
 welfare of her children. 
 
 The infant water-boatman of the age of one 
 or two days is very pretty and cunning, looking
 
 56 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 just like his ma, only very, very small. It is a 
 fact well known to those acquainted with the 
 Notonectidce that there exist among the Water- 
 boatmen different opinions as to the proper 
 method of swimming. In the characteristic di- 
 vision, Notonecta, all the bugs consider it emi- 
 nently proper to turn wrong side up, and swim 
 in that humiliating posture ; while the other divi- 
 sion, known as Corixa, consider such actions un- 
 seemly and swim right side up with great pro- 
 priety. Even from the egg these different modes 
 of swimming are observed. It is in the blood, 
 like any other family feud. Ranatra liked Corixa 
 better for eating, a fact that did him credit. 
 
 No sudden start ever makes Notonecta let go 
 its hold on its prey. Any unexpected jostle only 
 sends the bug darting off, upside down, holding 
 its prey firmly in its arms, as dreadful an embrace 
 as a bear's hug. The two oars bear up the bug 
 while it enjoys its meal. Occasionally Notonecta 
 shifts its^rey, and thrusts the pointed javelin of 
 a beak into another place. The second and third 
 joints of Notonecta's oars are the most feathered 
 ones, the hairs growing longer and thicker toward 
 the end of the third joint, just as the blade of an 
 oar becomes wider. Some Boatmen have a queer 
 way of standing on the middle pair of legs, like a 
 bug on stilts, the oars being spread in the water, 
 and the short, first pair of legs clapping together. 
 
 Wood tells us that the eggs of a Mexican kind
 
 WATER-BOATMEN. 57 
 
 of Water - boatman, of the variety Corixa, are 
 eaten by the Mexicans under the name of "haou- 
 tle." The eggs are collected by sinking bundles 
 of re'eds in the water, and the Corixa lays its eggs 
 on such bundles which are afterwards scraped and 
 the eggs are made into cakes. It is well for the 
 Mexicans that the Boatmen do not know of this 
 performance. The Bohemians are said on the 
 evening of all festival days to give some garlic 
 to the house-dog, the cock, and the gander, it be- 
 ing thought that such food will make the three 
 very brave. But I think the Boatmen would need 
 no food to rouse the heroic spirit within them. 
 If they heard of this Mexican performance, the 
 next thing would be a pitched battle between the 
 Boatmen and the supplanters of the Aztecs, and I 
 fear the latter would hardly come off victorious. 
 "Upon experience all these bugs grow familiar 
 and easy to us," says L' Estrange. Perhaps they 
 do. But I should be afraid to count too much on 
 my familiarity with the Boatmen. 
 
 De Geer supposed that the Water - boatman 
 drops some poison into its bite, since insects die 
 so soon after being pierced. And Wood likens 
 the dull, aching pain that follows the smart prick 
 of the proboscis of Corixa to 'the sting of a wasp 
 after the first sharpness of that has passed. I 
 cannot myself state how it feels, for I am thank- 
 ful to say that, in all my acquaintance with these 
 bugs, I have escaped their proboscides. I ain
 
 58 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 quite sure, though, that they would have been 
 most happy to have afforded me the sensation of 
 being penetrated by their beaks, and their only 
 regret in that case would have been that 'they 
 could not at the same time eject a bit of the acqua 
 tofana of Perugia into my veins.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WATER-TIGERS. 
 
 " Let 's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs." 
 
 Richard II. 
 
 Ix April one may find in this brook the nearly 
 full-grown larvae of those beetles known as the 
 Water - tigers, or Dytiscidce. These 
 larvae are ferocious creatures, as the 
 children of water - tigers well might be. 
 They are strong and slender, furnished at 
 one end of the body with a 
 flat head marked with six 
 ocelli and armed with a 
 pair of sharp jaws like 
 
 Larva of Dytiscus marginalis. Scissors, and at the other 
 
 end by two breathing gills 
 
 which they keep uppermost as they dart head 
 downward through the water. Armed with his 
 pair of shears, the gray-yellowish, two-inch-long 
 larva goes forth to prune the animal world. Is 
 that a polliwog? Let us snip off his tail. It is 
 too long. Or, if that cannot be accomplished, let 
 us at least hold on to the polliwog till we have 
 sucked him dry of juice.
 
 60 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 I do not think it is possible for two of these 
 water-tiger larvae to live together in the same 
 bottle. A battle will sooner or later occur and 
 one will be killed. The indiscriminate slaughter 
 of victims indulged in by these larvse soon im- 
 parts to an uncared-for jar an " ancient and fish- 
 like smell," since the larva? do not devour their 
 victims whole, but suck out the juice and then 
 drop the bodies on the bottom of the jar. A 
 keeper of these larvae will find himself called on 
 often to perform the office of undertaker. 
 
 But the sickle-jaws do not always prove all-pow- 
 erful. There are individuals that refuse to be 
 pruned by such a pair of shears. A big dragon- 
 fly larva is a match for the shears-bearer. I left 
 one of the Dytiscidce larvae once in a bottle of 
 large dragon-fly larvae, and when I came back 
 the shears-bearer was himself divided into two 
 parts. The dragon-flies had conquered. 
 
 Like some of the dragon-fly larvae when they 
 are about to enter upon the struggle of coming 
 out with wings, some of these beetle-larvae think 
 that " the melancholy days have come " when the 
 time approaches for leaving the water and bur- 
 rowing in the ground for the pupa-sleep before be- 
 coming beetles. One of my beetle-larvae, having 
 evidently attained its full size, seemed to be in- 
 capable of crawling out of the water. Hoping to 
 save him I assisted him out on a pot of earth, and 
 waited to see him bury himself. But evidently
 
 WATER-TIGERS. 61 
 
 the dark and narrow tomb had no attractions for 
 him. He refused to act as his own sexton, so I 
 returned him to the water, where, in spite of the 
 earth, with which he was furnished a few days 
 after, and which he manipulated with his jaws, 
 seeming to have a sort of cobwebby substance be- 
 tween them, he at last apparently drowned. Tak- 
 ing him out, I placed him on the earth again, but 
 he was too far gone to do more than faintly wrig- 
 gle his feet and tail, perchance, in token of adieu, 
 for he died in truth this time and never had the 
 pleasure of burying himself. Ah, well ! " The 
 good die young." 
 
 The full-grown, perfect beetles that come from 
 these larva? have a habit, when sitting still, of 
 holding their long oar-like hind-legs curved up 
 over their backs, instead of letting them lie 
 stretched out in the water, the way the water-boat- 
 men do with their oars. Another peculiarity of 
 the Dytiscidcs is their bubbles. You should see a 
 dozen dark-brown beetles, some of them perhaps 
 an inch long, standing on their heads at the bot- 
 tom of a jar of water, each beetle having at its 
 posterior end a shining round bubble of air. Oc- 
 casionally, from some collision or sudden calam- 
 ity, one of the beetles looses his bubble. Up the 
 round thing flies through the water to the surface, 
 and the bubble-less beetle is seldom long in rush- 
 ing up to protrude the end of his body and grasp 
 another round bubble with which he comes rush-
 
 62 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 ing triumphantly back to his brethren. Even if, 
 in the darkness of some obscure corner of the jar, 
 the Dytiscidce cannot be seen, yet one can catch 
 the shine of their bubbles and know where the 
 beetles are. The Dytiscidce are of a very retir- 
 ing disposition as long as they think that there is 
 any one around. They are capable of concealing 
 themselves pretty well. There may be a dozen of 
 these beetles in a jar, and if there are only mud 
 and weeds enough at the bottom, the creatures, 
 when alarmed, will conceal themselves so that one 
 would not know that there was a beetle in the 
 water. The dark color of the beetles is easily 
 concealed by its likeness to earth color, and, un- 
 less their bubbles betray them, the Dytiscidce 
 are safe. 
 
 There is a look of positive intelligence to many 
 of these beetles. They are the Yankees of Water 
 Land, in the matter of brains, though charity for- 
 bid that I should liken them in the matter of dis- 
 positions. When one of these beetles manages to 
 slip out of his jar and dry himself in the warm 
 sun, he will look at you in a knowing way as you 
 go to catch him, and then, spreading his wings, 
 will fly across the yard to some tree. It would 
 never do to put such innocent-hearted beetles as 
 the HydropMlidcp in with the Water-tigers, unless 
 one wished to see a battle in which the latter 
 would come off victorious, the flesh-eater triumph- 
 ing over the vegetable-eater.
 
 WATER-TIGERS. 63 
 
 The larvae of the Hydrophilidce and those of 
 the Water-tigers are much alike, when both are 
 half -grown, and the would-be " bug-sharp " will 
 suffer many things and be often distracted by re- 
 semblances while learning to distinguish the one 
 from the other. At times the indignant stu- 
 dent will be ready to rashly affirm that the only 
 way of telling the two apart is to wait till they 
 transform to beetles, and if a HydropMUdce 
 beetle comes forth, then the larva was of that 
 family, and vice versa. And as, under the care of 
 an amateur, most of the larva? die before reaching 
 maturity, any one can see that this experimental 
 method of discovering the difference between the 
 larvae is not very satisfactory. One may know 
 them apart, however, by the more clumsy form 
 of the HydropMUdce larvae, and by their dark, 
 thick-looking skin and toothed mandibles. Ver 
 assassin, the people of Europe call the larva of 
 their ffydrophihis piceus, and certainly no one 
 could tell the larvae of the two families apart by 
 reference to ferocity, for, if one family are assas- 
 sins, so are the other. 
 
 In mid -April, as one drags the Water -tiger 
 larvae from their hidden nooks under the grass 
 that dips into the stream, a flash of vivid yellow 
 comes by, and one admiringly watches the first 
 Colias butterfly of the season flit 011 black-bor- 
 dered wings over the fields that are yellow as 
 itself with the hosts of buttercups and the fewer
 
 64 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 but more brilliant blossoms of the California 
 poppies. By the way there is a slight difference 
 between the California Colias butterfly, as I have 
 examined it, and the Eastern variety C. Philo- 
 dice, as described by Harris, a difference that is 
 interesting to those only who are concerned with 
 the minutiae of insect life. The difference is to 
 be found on the under side of the hind wings, 
 where the small secondary spot on each wing is 
 not white, as in the Eastern variety, but rust- 
 colored. Moreover this little spot is outside of 
 the rust-colored ring that surrounds the larger 
 white spot, instead of both spots being joined to- 
 gether and both surrounded by the rust-colored 
 ring. Other mid-April visitors to the brook are 
 little Agrion dragon-flies, and one may perhaps 
 see the first of the large blue-and-black dragon- 
 flies at the same time. 
 
 One year, when spring arrived, I was seized 
 with a great desire to achieve that which I had 
 not before, and carry some of the Water-tigers 
 through their successive stages and observe their 
 transformation into beetles. Accordingly I pro- 
 cured a collection of these larvae from the brook. 
 One of these larvae was Oliver. He was so 
 named because, like Twist of trite fame, he con- 
 tinually sighed for more polliwogs. The num- 
 ber of these interesting creatures that Oliver and 
 his brethren devoured passes belief. My life was 
 made a burden to me, owing to the necessity
 
 WA TER- TIGERS. 65 
 
 of fi'equent trips to the creek to get polliwogs 
 enough to sustain the breath in life of Oliver and 
 his brethren. I was also compelled to become 
 a constructor of imitation ponds, lest the larvae 
 should want to burrow in the earth at times when 
 I was not around to give them any to burrow in. 
 Oliver's pond was constructed of a big, cracked 
 marble basin, that had once been stationary but 
 was so no longer, and a porcelain lid of capacious 
 diameter. The lid being turned upside down 
 and filled with water made Oliver's pond, and 
 this being set in the middle of the basin full of 
 earth, behold the lake was complete. 
 
 A section of mosquito-bar was tied over the 
 whole so that should Oliver feel inclined to 
 wander from the limits of the basin and make his 
 tomb in the round, big earth, he could not do so. 
 The search for his sepulchre would certainly have 
 been discouraging then. But Oliver was capable 
 of giving me any amount of discouragement. 
 
 After all my tribulations, early one morning 
 toward the end of April, I found he was not in 
 his lake. Joy filled my soul, for I knew he had 
 buried himself. Pfe had stuffed himself with the 
 slain and had left two live polliwogs to mourn his 
 departure. 
 
 Seizing a spoon I began to dig, feeling con- 
 fident that I should find Oliver's tomb in a few 
 moments, and intending, after looking at him, to 
 cover him gently again and stick up a tombstone
 
 66 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 in the shape of a chip, and then patiently wait 
 the two or three weeks necessary before I should 
 hail the arisen Oliver in the guise of a beetle. 
 
 But I dug and dug and still no Oliver ap- 
 peared. I think I can safely say that seldom 
 since the days of my mud-pie infancy have my 
 hands been so encased in mud as on the day of 
 my dig after Oliver, I crumbled the wet earth 
 till at last I reached the bottom of the basin, and 
 yet I had found nothing of the one of whom I 
 was in search. But, alas ! I had found something 
 else. It was some secret holes that I had for- 
 gotten, the holes that in stationary basins lead to 
 the overflow pipe. If Oliver found those holes 
 there can be no doubt that he managed to squeeze 
 himself through and depart down the pipe to the 
 outer world. In despair I replaced his lake, and 
 tied on his mosquito -bar. I left his dish full of 
 water, that if the wanderer returned he might 
 find a place in which to swim, but my heart told 
 me that I should never behold Oliver again. On 
 mature consideration I came to the conclusion that 
 Oliver slipped under the mosquito -bar someway 
 instead of going down the oversow pipe. 
 
 About this time also perished the Scarer of 
 Soap - Dish - Lid Lake. His name was given 
 him because his pond was formed of a soap-dish 
 lid turned wrong side up, and he scared every 
 polliwog that visited him. The cause of the 
 Scarer's death was the exuberance of Sol's rays.
 
 WATER-TIGERS. 67 
 
 Thinking my larvae protected enough, I left them 
 one hot clay, but when I returned the Scarer could 
 scare no more. The water of his lake had be- 
 come too warm, and I barely rescued his brother, 
 the Conqueror of Coffee-Pot-Lid Lake, from a 
 similar fate. I might as well have let him alone, 
 however, for although after a day of languishing- 
 he seemed to recover his health, yet he died 
 within a week. I had removed all the larvae's 
 lakes to the shade of a high board fence where 
 they might surely have been cool enough, but the 
 Conqueror's first taste of warm water seemed to 
 have been too much for him. 
 
 The Frightener of Flower - Pot Lake disap- 
 peared in the same mysterious manner that Oli- 
 ver had done. I never saw such exasperating 
 ingenuity as was displayed by some of my pris- 
 oners. 
 
 One day I came upon Conqueror II. of Cof- 
 fee-Pot-Lid Lake outside of the water, lying on 
 the earth. I supposed that he would dig; his 
 hole before my eyes, but after my coming he 
 walked around a little and then plunged into his 
 lake once more and hid beneath a sprig of alys- 
 sum, remarking that he was just as proud as some 
 other people, and if there was any digging to be 
 done he preferred to have no visitors during the 
 performance. I told him that that seemed to be 
 the opinion of all of his brethren, but he should 
 remember the saying of Shakespeare :
 
 68 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 " Oh. a pit of clay for to be made 
 For such a guest is meet. ' ' 
 
 He made no answer to this bit of good advice, 
 but lie must have taken it to heart, for in the 
 afternoon when I visited him and gently assisted 
 him partly out of the lake, he took the hint and 
 came entirely out. Poking his head down under 
 a clod, he remained in that position quite a while, 
 perhaps revolving in his mind the momentous 
 question whether the earth was indeed a better 
 place of residence than Coffee - Pot - Lid - Lake. 
 He occasionally wriggled his tail, breathing yet 
 through that useful member. He gradually be- 
 came drier. He had been afflicted with quick, 
 convulsive pants, presumably useful to him in 
 getting rid of the water that clung to him. Half 
 an hour went by. A mosquito, delighted with 
 the stillness of the observer, persistently en- 
 deavored to make a meal off that much-enduring 
 person, but was at last slapped to death. Various 
 flies were also afflicted with curiosity as to why 
 any mortal should be sitting on the piazza in 
 their way. Growing impatient at last, I picked a 
 sprig and gave the Conqueror a little prick there- 
 with. So successful was this manoeuvre that 
 the surprised Conqueror executed a somersault 
 and landed on his back. I think he had been 
 asleep. Recovering his dignity the Conqueror 
 turned his head toward his lake. But he re- 
 mained on land. I was called away on an
 
 WATER-TIGERS. 69 
 
 errand, and when I returned some two hours 
 later the Conqueror was still in an undecided 
 frame of mind. 
 
 Thinking that perhaps he expected me to per- 
 form the office of sexton, I poked a hole and as- 
 sisted him into it. He seemed gratified, but the 
 next day he came out. His tomb did not suit 
 him, so I dug him a hole long enough for him to 
 lie down in comfortably. This suited better, but 
 it seemed to be a vexed question in Conqueror 
 II.'s mind as to which was the more proper, to 
 be buried with his head to the west or to the east. 
 He lay facing the east a while, but afterwards 
 changed to the other position. 
 
 I felt conscience-stricken. Perhaps I had un- 
 justly accused the Conqueror. How did I know 
 he could dig ? What had he to dig with ? His 
 legs looked too weak, but I had thought he would 
 use his mandibles, in the way that I had seen 
 CorabidcB larvae make holes in the earth. But 
 the ground-beetle-larva3 had always lived in the 
 ground and been used to the menial employment 
 of digging, whereas the Conqueror had had noth- 
 ing but water to go through. 
 
 It was the righteous larva of Yeast-Powder- 
 Lid Lake that undeceived me. He was missing 
 one morning, and digging after him with a heavy 
 heart, for I had learned to expect that my 
 captives would escape, to my joyful surprise I 
 found him nearly at the bottom of the earth in
 
 70 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 the flower-pot. He was probably aiming at the 
 hole in the bottom of the flower-pot, but I stopped 
 that up immediately. 
 
 Having thus learned that these larvae could dig, 
 I went indignantly back to the Conqueror and 
 dumped the earth in on that impostor. He was 
 lying facing the west, but I gave him no time to 
 assume a more orthodox position. A person that 
 would tell as many lies as the Conqueror did has 
 nothing to do with orthodoxy anyway. The Con- 
 queror was like all the rest of us. He preferred 
 to have some one else do his digging for him. The 
 more I study bugs, the more do I perceive the 
 resemblances between them and human beings. 
 Nevertheless I did not relish being appointed Sex- 
 ton of the Graveyard of Beetles. 
 
 My record of the Conqueror for the next few 
 days is that he arose from his grave mornings, 
 and was promptly buried again by the Sexton. I 
 know not the number of times, but at last the 
 Conqueror took up his residence under a tin lid 
 and refused to stay buried at all. 
 
 The proper way for these larvae to do is to 
 make round cells for themselves in the ground. I 
 dug down to see one of my larvae that had been 
 buried about a week and found him in quite a 
 finely made cell that he had hollowed out. He 
 was indignant at my intrusion, however, and I 
 withdrew. He was the same larva of Yeast-Pow- 
 der-Lid Lake that had informed me of the base-
 
 WATER-TIGERS. 71 
 
 ness of the Conqueror. After this larva had been 
 buried nineteen days I again dug down to see how 
 he was getting along. He had split a hole in the 
 skin of his back, and four or five white segments 
 of his body bulged out of the rent. He wriggled, 
 and I again withdrew. 
 
 Will it be believed that not a single larva arose 
 as a beetle ? There was at first a slight doubt in 
 the case of the larva of Yeast-Powder-Lid Lake, 
 for I found his empty husk, but I know now that 
 its emptiness was due, not to a secret resurrection, 
 but to the ants. After all my labors in digging 
 earth-worms and in going after polliwogs, this was 
 my reward. 
 
 The following are the names of the unresur- 
 rected dead and of those that died before burying 
 themselves : 
 
 1. Conqueror of Coffee-Pot-Lid Lake. 
 
 2. Conqueror II. 
 
 3. The Hesitator. 
 
 4. Larva of Yeast-Powder-Lid Lake. 
 
 5. Scarer of Soap-Dish-Lid Lake. 
 
 6. Triumpher of Tin- Pan Lake. 
 
 7. Monarch of Mortar Lake. 
 
 8. " The Last." 
 
 List of those that " played hookey " : 
 
 1. Oliver. 
 
 2. Frightener of Flower-Pot Lake. 
 
 3. ' The Last-But-One."
 
 72 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 Numbers of other larva? of no names perished 
 in their infancy. The Monarch of Mortar Lake, 
 however, deserves honorable mention. I am al- 
 most certain that, if the Sexton of the Grave- 
 yard of Beetles had left the Monarch alone, he 
 would have come out as a beetle. But said Sex- 
 ton was too officious, and to that may be ascribed 
 the Monarch's death. I am sure his intentions 
 were all right. He was the only one of all the 
 larva} that managed, after forming a round cell, to 
 pull off his skin and become a pupa. 
 
 The Monarch had left the watery for the earthy 
 element on the 7th of May. The 8th of June 
 an unlucky fit of curiosity seized me and I ex- 
 plored the depths to see what had become of 
 him. I found that he had made a good-sized 
 round hole as big as a small potato. Inside the 
 cell was the old skin overcoat that the Monarch 
 had worn as a larva. Outside, below the cell, 
 having evidently tumbled out through my fault, 
 was the Monarch himself, but so changed that 
 one would hardly have known him, for he was 
 very much fatter than he had been as a larva, 
 and was now a big, white pupa, with legs folded 
 on his breast, and dull, black eyes showing under 
 the white. He looked as if he were made of con- 
 densed milk. After this the Monarch turned 
 dark, but the poor fellow never came out, for the 
 Sexton had been his murderer. 
 
 The next time that I undertake to raise
 
 WATKR-T1GERS. 73 
 
 Water -tigers will probably be when I can af- 
 ford to hire a small boy to bring me a small pail- 
 ful of black toad-polliwogs daily. 
 
 Dytiscus pupa. 
 The Monarch at rest. 
 
 I have read that in 1258 the commons of Cas- 
 tile bluntly required the king " to bring his ap- 
 petite within a more reasonable compass." And 
 the king meekly assented to the proposition. But 
 what is a king compared with a Water - tiger ? 
 The former might agree to being deprived of any- 
 thing he wanted to eat, but the latter would rebel. 
 Pliny tells of men living on the smell of the river 
 Ganges. But though the odor arising from some 
 of the pools in which Water-tigers live is quite 
 perceptible at times, yet the creatures hardly seem 
 to thrive on that alone. For Water -tigers are 
 not candidates for Nirvana, and therefore do not 
 subsist on " insipid food," as those worthies were 
 expected to. Like the Macdonalds of Glencoe, 
 the Tigers have, indeed, " been guilty of many 
 black uiurthers." But then, one can hardly ex- 
 pect the Water-tigers to practise such abstinence
 
 74 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 as the Druids were wont to use when they, in or- 
 der to accustom themselves to curbing their appe- 
 tites, would have a banquet prepared, and would 
 survey the feast for some time. Then, their firm- 
 ness having been sufficiently tried, they all with- 
 drew without having eaten a morsel. Water- 
 tigers never would think of such abstinence, and 
 you shall find in their homes as many relics of 
 dead and gone beings as the churches of Europe 
 contained in the days when Geneva showed a 
 piece of pumice as the brain of the apostle Peter, 
 and a bone of a deer as the arm of St. Anthony, 
 and when other places contained the hair of the 
 Virgin, the tooth of John the Baptist, the shoul- 
 der-blade of Simeon, and a lip of one of the Inno- 
 cents. 
 
 Perhaps, for the benefit of those who might 
 wish to go dredging themselves, I should describe 
 the implement with which I catch water-creatures. 
 There is no need of spending a cent on apparatus 
 for catching such insects. My dredger is of my 
 own manufacture and consists of a strong, round, 
 iron hoop that was probably once on a keg or 
 something of the sort. To this hoop I have fas- 
 tened a strainer consisting of apiece of an old cal- 
 ico apron. Occasionally the calico tears, but it is 
 easily mended and is better than mosquito-bar be- 
 cause that will be likely to let small larvaa escape 
 through the meshes. The handle of the dredger 
 is an old round stick about a yard long. I think
 
 WATER-TIGERS. 
 
 75 
 
 it was once part of a wooden clothes-horse. One 
 end of the stick being 
 split admits the iron 
 hoop, and the two are 
 firmly bound together 
 by strips of stout cot- 
 ton cloth. 
 
 Armed with such 
 an implement as this, 
 one can sweep under 
 the water-weeds and 
 be victorious. But 
 use old calico or 
 something thin for 
 the strainer, or your 
 patience may be ex- 
 hausted while you 
 wait for the water to 
 run out so that you 
 can see your captives. 
 
 Glass fruit-jars or 
 old jelly-glasses make 
 fine homes for beetles 
 and bugs that do not 
 need to come out on 
 dry land at times. A 
 stick or bunch of 
 grass is all the rest- Home-made Dredger, 
 
 ing-place needed by such insects. 
 
 The finest and cheapest receptacles that I have
 
 76 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 ever found for caterpillars are empty yeast-powder 
 or preserve cans. In some families it is a problem 
 to know what to do with all the plum, peach, or 
 tomato cans that accumulate. But when there is 
 an amateur entomologist in the family, that diffi- 
 culty vanishes. There is nothing so adapted to 
 caterpillars, according to my experience. Tins 
 are better than bottles. There is a warm, un- 
 healthful atmosphere in a bottle that is not found 
 in a tin can. Rinse the tins that no juice may re- 
 main from the former contents, for that will draw 
 ants. One can keep caterpillars in such a tin till 
 they are fully grown, and oftentimes they will go 
 up and form their chrysalides on the mosquito- 
 bar that is tied over the top to prevent the cater- 
 pillars from running away and to allow a good 
 circulation of air. Lady-bug larvae and other 
 creatures will come to perfection in such tins, 
 which should be put in some shady place where 
 the sun will not heat them. One may learn the 
 habits and observe the customs of all the creatures 
 one can find in the neighborhood, without spend- 
 ing anything unless it is for shoe-leather. 
 
 But do hide your tins and yourself when you 
 are at such work, or you will hear a window open, 
 or else it will open without your hearing it, and 
 you will have to endure some such talk as this : 
 
 " What are you petting there ? " 
 
 " Caterpillars." I stand up and suffer a 
 faint wonder to pass through my mind if I am
 
 WATER-TIGERS. 77 
 
 never to be safe from intrusion, even in my own 
 yard. 
 
 " What do you do with them ? " 
 
 " Keep them till they turn to butterflies." 
 
 " What do you do with them then ? " 
 
 " Let them go." 
 
 " Oh, you just keep them to " 
 
 " To see them transform." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " To see them transform." 
 
 Amazement evidently filled the soul of the 
 neighbor. 
 
 " I never saw them," she said. 
 
 And this from a woman forty-five or so, with 
 eyes in her head. What sort of a world do such 
 people live in, that they never notice anything ? 
 And what, I wonder, can be that woman's idea of 
 some of the verses in the Psalms ? I presume she 
 has read them a hundred times. " Praise the 
 Lord from the earth " ye " creeping things," says 
 David. What are the " creeping things," accord- 
 ing to this woman's eyes ? I wonder if she ever 
 explained that verse to herself. 
 
 I remember the day when the idea fii'st entered 
 my brain that other creatures than human have 
 interesting lives. I must have been about eight 
 or nine years old. I had been taking a walk in a 
 little mining town among the Sierra Nevada foot- 
 hills. A minister was with me, and he had a 
 hand-microscope or glass in his pocket.
 
 78 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 We sat down under the trees on a hill some- 
 where back of a church, and he showed me 
 through the glass a multitude of little creatures 
 living in the heart of a yellow flower. And he 
 said to me that perhaps those tiny folk had houses 
 and cities inside that flower, just as we bigger 
 people had. outside of it. It was a wonderful 
 thing to me to look at the mites and imagine what 
 the minister suggested, and I have a fancy that 
 perhaps I longed to be one of those little things 
 for a time, just to see the supposed houses and 
 cities. But I remember that as a very wonder- 
 ful day, one on which I did not see half enough 
 through that glass to suit me, but still one on 
 which I obtained a glimpse of a world very differ- 
 ent from that in which I usually lived. 
 
 No wonder people unacquainted with such a 
 world ask questions. Some day I may write " A 
 Catechism for The Warning of Those Who Pro- 
 pose to be Bug - Hunters." It will contain a 
 number of questions that they may expect to be 
 asked and that they must always be prepared to 
 answer, if they do not wish to be thought idiots. 
 It is quite probable that they will be thought such, 
 anyway. Some of the questions will be these : 
 "What are you doing?" "What are those?" 
 " What are they good for ? " " What do you do 
 with them ? " " What are you after ? " " What 
 do you get them for ? " " What makes you like 
 them?"
 
 WATER-TIGERS. 79 
 
 This is a fearfully inquisitive world. 
 
 But there is one question that is seldom asked 
 of a bug-hunter. It is this, " Who made them ? " 
 The majority of people scarcely pause to realize 
 that the different kinds of creatures represent so 
 many of God's different thoughts, and that it 
 might possibly be worth while to glance at the 
 things that He has deigned to place on earth..
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHIRLIGIGS. 
 
 " Here 's another ballad of a fish." 
 
 Winter's Tale. 
 
 THE end of May has come. Filaree, with all 
 its spikes, is abroad in the land. Mustard shines 
 like the sun. Blue-grass blooms. So do blue- 
 bells, Brodicva . White Yarrow 
 shows his snowy head beside the 
 stream. Blue lupines are mixed 
 with yellow poppies 
 among the already 
 browning grass by 
 the roads. In one 
 place by the brook 
 is a big clump of 
 sticky Mi mill us, 
 M. glutinosus. The 
 locust-trees are full 
 of perfume. A great yellow-and-black Papilio, 
 swallow-tail butterfly, flits above the grain on the 
 hill-top. Many wicked little green beetles, D'HI- 
 brotica, the pests of fruit-growers, crawl over the 
 
 Blue-bells. 
 Bud and flower of Brodicea terrestris.
 
 WHIRLIGIGS. 
 
 81 
 
 stems of the blue lupine that is just now in its 
 glory. 
 
 Mimulus glutinostis. 
 
 Let us climb this bank. 
 Kind Neighbor Thistle, give us 
 a hand. Benevolent Brother 
 Teasel, do likewise. It is only 
 in that one place that the Jfim- 
 ulits grows. Perhaps it may 
 die out from this region alto- 
 gether some day. Wild flow- 
 ers do die out. I can remem- 
 ber when shooting - stars, Do- 
 decatheon Jlciidiri, cowslips, 
 
 Shooting-star. 
 
 grew near here, but it has been Dodecatheon
 
 82 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 many a day since I gathered them in this district. 
 There are none here now, and I hope the same 
 fate will not overtake the butterfly lily that comes 
 in but scanty numbers among the dry grass of 
 these hills in June. 
 
 From this height we may look down and see 
 the Whirligig beetles on the surface of the pools. 
 
 Mariposa (Butterfly) Lily. 
 Calochortus Weedii. 
 
 " Death's net, whom none resist," is often more 
 full of Whirligigs than is the dredger of the 
 persistent, unsuccessful mortal. A dead Whirli- 
 gig beetle is a solemn sight. The one that was 
 the liveliest beetle of the brook, an animated flash, 
 a perpetual whirl, the one that seemed as if he 
 could not move quickly enough to suit himself,
 
 WHIRLIGIGS. 83 
 
 lies in your hand, stiff, with his legs folded in 
 death. But if the beetle himself is solemn, some- 
 times his eyes are ghastly. The compound eyes 
 of these Whirligigs are very curious objects. One 
 would surely think in looking at the dead beetle 
 that he had four distinct eyes, two in the usual 
 place, and two others under his chin, so to speak. 
 In one beetle, long-dead, that I examined, the 
 under eyes were the more ghastly. They looked 
 white, like a human eye that had neither iris nor 
 pupil, while the pair of eyes above showed black 
 inside a rim of the same whitish color. In a bee- 
 tle just dead both pair of eyes look black. The 
 eyes under the chin, of course, are the ones that 
 the Whirligig always keeps under water to see if 
 any enemy is coming up from below. 
 
 How can a beetle be sensitive to knocks when 
 he is incased in such an armor as this ? The Gy- 
 rinidce look as if they had suits of steel. Not for 
 them are the scratches and bumps of life. It 
 is enough to make human beings wonder how it 
 would seem to be so safely shut in from all pricks, 
 and one looks at one's finger-nails, remembering 
 the old Jewish tradition that Adam and Eve at 
 first were entirely covered with finger-nail, but, 
 after the fall, this invulnerable panoply dropped 
 off, and mortals since then have had skins that 
 could be hurt. Nevertheless the finger-nails were 
 left that the first pair might always, remember 
 Eden's freedom from pain, when they looked at 
 their hands.
 
 84 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 If, as in Adam and Eve's case, panoply against 
 harm argues innocence, then these Gyrlnidce 
 might claim to be the most perfect of beetles. 
 But alas ! here is another case of duplicity in this 
 brook, for the Gyrinidce are black murderers, kill- 
 ing by trade, and when one sees a host of them 
 whirling over some corner of a pond, it is as 
 though one were looking at a band of pirates, for 
 every available small insect that comes within 
 reach of those Gyrinidce is doomed. Sociability 
 is a characteristic of the Gyrinidce. It is seldom 
 that a single one goes skimming by himself. Gen- 
 erally they prefer to whirl in small crowds. Be- 
 holding their evil deeds one might think that the 
 Gyrinidce were sociable in order to keep each 
 other in countenance, much as a baud of sworn 
 cut-throats might be. 
 
 Still, during the last few days of February or 
 the first of March, before the GyrinidcB have 
 come out in great numbers, there will here and 
 there be found one whirling by himself. It re- 
 quires some skill to catch a beetle of this sort, 
 unless one has learned the trick of confusing him 
 by splashing with the dredger. The beetle will 
 whirl and whirl till one's eyes are blinded and 
 one's head is dizzy with the effort of following 
 the motions ; and then, unless a fortunate scoop 
 is made suddenly with the dredger, down goes 
 the beetle .under the surface and is lost to view. 
 Moreover it is a wise person that can keep a
 
 WHIRLIGIGS. 85 
 
 Whirligig after catching one. As a youth once 
 said to me, after looking at my bottle of captured 
 Whirligigs, " They act as if they were crazy." 
 Moreover, Whirligigs can climb glass, and if one 
 takes off the niosquito-bar carelessly from the 
 bottle, as likely as not a Whirligig drops over 
 the side. It is a good thing that these Gyrinidce 
 cannot walk well. If they could walk out of 
 water as well as they can dash around on top of 
 that element, there would be no catching them. 
 As it is, however, they are easily caught on dry 
 land, for they have to move at a pace that must 
 be exasperatingly slow to them, since their feet 
 are not suited to crawling. Then it is that one 
 may observe the relative difference in the pairs 
 of legs of these Gyrinidce ; the first pair being 
 the longest and capable of being suddenly thrust 
 out at the prey, and the hind pair being flat like 
 oars, but like oars with short handles, not long 
 ones, as in the W r ater-Tigers. The Dytiscidw 
 have long hind legs, the Gyrinidce long fore 
 ones. 
 
 " They call them ' good - luck bugs,' " said a 
 little fellow to me once at the brook, as he looked 
 upon the Whirligigs. 
 
 " What do they call them that for ? " asked I, 
 in search of information. 
 
 " Because they bring good luck," answered the 
 boy, confidently. 
 
 "Do they?"
 
 86 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 " Yes 'm. You just take and keep one of them 
 and you '11 have good luck." 
 
 " Why, is n't that strange ! Did you ever try 
 it ? " asked I, being bent on finding out what the 
 little revealer of superstition would say. 
 
 " Yes 'm," responded he ; "I kept some of 
 them, and I always had good luck, every day 
 'most. One day I found two bits ;" and, having 
 proved his theory to his own satisfaction, and 
 demonstrated his right to be called a Californian 
 by his use of the common expression for twenty- 
 five cents, he proceeded to assist in the dredging, 
 innocent of the knowledge that to be a healthy, 
 dirty boy, with no care but to hunt red-legs in 
 the creek, is indeed to " have good-luck every 
 day," without any assistance from the virtuous 
 Whirligigs. 
 
 But if he was mistaken in regard to the bles- 
 sedness of possessing these beetles, this boy had 
 observed their habits, for he informed me that 
 when he kept the " good-luck bugs," he gave them 
 " about five flies " every day at noon, and that 
 the Whirligigs would jump for them, as soon as 
 they were thrown in, and would eat them. This 
 statement can be verified by any one who is will- 
 ing to catch a fly for Gyrinus. Three or four 
 beetles will try to devour a single fly ; in fact, on 
 an especially hungry day I have seen eleven 
 Whirligigs form a circle around a fly and grasp 
 it, while on the outside of the circle were still
 
 WHIRLIGIGS. 87 
 
 others trying to poke their way in to the centre 
 of attraction. I do hope that boy killed the 
 flies before giving them to the beetles. Had I 
 known the habits of Whirligigs as well then as I 
 do now I should have entreated him to be sure 
 that the flies were dead. Not that I am an ad- 
 mirer of the fly. On the contrary, I abhor him. 
 But one does not like to see him killed by par- 
 ticles. 
 
 Just about the time when Whirligigs first 
 begin to be plentiful in the spring, the last of 
 March, there will come up in one's dredger what 
 look like bits of dry tree-twigs. They are five 
 eighths of an inch 
 long, or thereabouts, 
 composed of eight 
 segments looking like 
 the divisions of a 
 twig. But put these Pupeof 
 
 sticks into water, and 
 they will float perpendicularly, not horizontally 
 after the manner of real sticks, and one will no- 
 tice that from the part that is uppermost there 
 stand out two little projections. Some day when 
 you are looking at these " twigs " one of them 
 will give a kick, and the next morning, when you 
 go out to look at the bottle, you will find the twig 
 with a hole in the upper part of it, and in the 
 upper portion of the bottle, holding itself above 
 water-line, will be a long-legged fly. This fly
 
 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 came out of the " twig," for that was the brown 
 case, covering the pupa of one of the flies that 
 look like giant mosquitoes, the Tipulidce. 
 
 Daddy Long-Legs the children call the fly re- 
 lated to this that passes the two earlier stages of 
 its life in the ground. " Crane-flies " others name 
 them, and the French cry " Tail- 
 leurs," or " Couturieres." I think 
 these water-flies sometimes drown 
 while struggling out of their pupae- 
 cases. At least I have found one 
 in such a position as to convey 
 that idea, and the won- 
 der is that any of them 
 get out alive w h e n 
 there is nothing near 
 to be grasped by the 
 insect during the ope- 
 ration. 
 
 If you know where 
 to look you may find 
 other Tipulid larvae 
 near here. A few live- 
 oak-trees are scattered 
 along the banks. Some of the trees are old, for 
 holes in their trunks show the rotting wood 
 within. One day as I wandered here I spied in 
 a tree a hole about on a level with my head. 
 The hole extended through the tree so that I 
 could view the interior. Black-bottomed with the 
 
 Tipulid Fly, somewhat larger 
 than mine.
 
 WHIRLIGIGS. 89 
 
 debris of tree-decay, the hole looked mysterious. 
 Should I explore it ? I did. My trowel came 
 forth with its burden of black. Spreading it on 
 the ground I looked for live inhabitants in. every 
 trowelful. A mosquito walked sleepily out of the 
 debris as though deprecating my actions. A small 
 centipede, I believe, threatened me with destruc- 
 tion. But in the mass I found the larva? of ten 
 Tipulid flies, one wedged into the side of a piece 
 of wood so soft that I could mash it between my 
 fingers. 
 
 The larvae were light-lilac-colored worms from 
 seven eighths to an inch long, with bodies ending 
 in a round of V-shaped points, somewhat like 
 some of the larvae of dragon-flies. The Tipulid 
 worms had an uncanny way of moving, the black 
 internal arrangements showing in places under 
 the almost transparent skin, giving the observer 
 the impression that the creatures might be break- 
 ing to pieces. Extremely uncomfortable were the 
 larvae on being dug out of their tree-home, and 
 unanimous were the ten in their appreciation of a 
 jelly-glass of the tree-mould in which they might 
 hide again. They soon turned to pupae, for they 
 were nearly grown. Such larvae live upon vege- 
 table mould. Reamur found that such creatures 
 extract all the nourishing matter from the earth 
 that they eat. One would think it a pretty dry 
 diet, yet the larvae seemed to enjoy life in the old 
 tree that opened its trunk and said to the insect
 
 90 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 creation, " Come, little friends, I can help you 
 still. No matter if I am old. I can help you 
 better on that very account. Whereas, before, 
 the most of you had to stay outside, I can take 
 you now into my very heart." 
 
 All who have kept Whirligigs know that they, 
 like the Dytiscidce, carry down bubbles, and you 
 may see a beetle at the bottom of the jar, holding 
 to some little pebble and accompanied by his tiny 
 quota of air. 
 
 Figuier tells us that in a little lake of Solazies, 
 Reunion Island, there are some tropical GyrinidcB 
 of a somewhat large size, and that the patients, 
 who go to Solazies for the mineral waters, amuse 
 themselves there by fishing for the Whirligigs 
 with lines baited with bits of red cloth which the 
 beetles will attack. Some of my little Whirligigs 
 are also deluded by a snare of this kind. Fish- 
 ing for them with a bit of red braid attached to 
 a red thread, one will see some beetle seize it and 
 ho!4 on till he is brought almost out of the jar, 
 while he is vigorously seeking for nutriment ap- 
 parently in the braid. A white bit of cloth has 
 also some attractions. I suppose it reminds the 
 beetles, at first sight, of a white moth. Black 
 cloth seems to have almost no interest for the 
 Whirligigs. 
 
 The bill of fare for these Gyrinidce, as far as I 
 have observed, is as follows :
 
 WHIRLIGIGS. 91 
 
 1. Middle-sized Spiders. (Often taken alive, on the 
 
 whirl.) 
 
 2. Dead Flies. 
 
 3. Live black gnat-worms. 
 
 4. Live Aphides. 
 
 o. Dead small Moths. 
 
 6. Dead Daddy Long-Legs. 
 
 7. Dead Mosquitoes. 
 
 I think that Whirligigs are cannibals, since I 
 have found them floating dead in the jar with 
 their heads off. Still, I never saw a Whirligig 
 kill another, but appearances are against them. 
 
 Whirligigs seem to regard ants as unworthy 
 partners in this dance of death and discard them. 
 I should not think myself that an ant would be 
 very good eating. 
 
 I do not remember ever having seen a jump- 
 ing - spider discomfited by these beetles. The 
 Whirligigs will skim by and longingly nip at a 
 jumping-spider's toes, but evidently there is con- 
 siderable fear mingled with the admiration, even 
 though the beetles must see that the spider is in 
 an element to which he is unused. 
 
 Smaller varieties of spiders are speedily dis- 
 posed of. I was once present at a duel between 
 one of these spiders and a Whirligig, in which 
 I thought at first that the black-mailed warrior 
 would be forced to yield, for the spider waved 
 his legs over the Whirligig's head and evidently 
 was quite anxious to bite him. But the Whirl-
 
 92 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 igig, undaunted, plunged into the spider's em- 
 brace, and, before I could divine his intention, 
 that Whirligig bit his antagonist directly in two 
 at the waist and whirled off with the fore part of 
 the body, leaving the hinder half to the care of 
 some less brave Whirligigs. So ended this " Gen- 
 tle and Joyous Passage of Arms." 
 
 Beetles of other sorts seem to be rejected by 
 Whirligigs, according to my observations. Prob- 
 ably the hard outside of most beetles is what de- 
 ters the Whirligigs from attack. A dead bee 
 that I once gave them was merely tasted of. Bee- 
 flesh and ant-flesh are alike distasteful, which 
 shows that Whirligigs have some gustatory pow- 
 ers, as well as other folks. 
 
 " Tourniquets,'' turn-stiles, or turn-pikes, the 
 French call these Whirligigs, and, if one of these 
 beetles were set for that office, I think he would 
 whirl as rapidly as did ever any turn-stile. Con- 
 trary to what one would think, these lively beetles 
 seem to be quite well contented as captives. A 
 jar is a world almost big enough for a Whirligig. 
 
 " Beetles," says old De Mouffet, " serve divers 
 uses, for they both profit our mindes, and they 
 cure some infirmities of our bodies." I do not 
 know that Whirligigs are remedies for any of the 
 ills that flesh is heir to. If, then, these beetles 
 serve no use for our " infirmities," how do they 
 " profit our mindes " ? 
 
 Well, perhaps they may remind us of the old,
 
 WHIRLIGIGS. 93 
 
 old truth that, be we nimble as we may, Death 
 is quicker still, and shall sometime overtake us. 
 And then, if we have spent our lives snatching 
 good things away from our neighbors, and count- 
 ing all as our enemies, only valuing others for 
 what we can take from them, we shall not be 
 missed or mourned for, 'though we no longer 
 glitter in the sun. Nature itself teaches the 
 lesson of death ; and Louis XIV., used as he 
 was to adulation, must have despised Bourdaloue 
 who, having cried out in a sermon, " All, all 
 must die ! " seeing the king start, hastened to 
 reassure the royal mind by adding, " Almost all, 
 Sire ! " 
 
 Death is the swiftest of all things. Is that the 
 lesson of the Whirligig, living and dead? Per- 
 haps some observer, more wise than I, can find 
 something in the Gyrinidce that will more profit 
 his " minde " than this lesson of mine. To every 
 one his own perception and the responsibility 
 thereof. Only it does no good to learn a lesson 
 from a book or from nature, unless the learner 
 straightway puts it in practice ; and a warning of 
 an event is of no value unless it leads those 
 warned to make ready for it. 
 
 The pictures of water-beetles perhaps give some 
 people too good an impression. 
 
 "I'm mamma's little water - beetle," said a 
 golden-haired little two-year-old to a friend of 
 mine who had been showing her the pictures of
 
 94 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 insects. Perhaps when the child is older, and 
 when she better understands the murderous charac- 
 ter of many water-beetles, she will not be so ready 
 to name herself after them. For the carnivorous 
 water-beetles are as bloodthirsty as were the mob 
 that Machiavelli tells us tore poor Ser Nuto to 
 pieces. Says that chronicler : " Ser Nuto being 
 brought by the mob into the court, was suspended 
 from the gallows by one foot ; and those around 
 having torn him to pieces, in little more than a 
 moment nothing remained of him but the foot by 
 which he had been tied." 
 
 Scarcely so large a remnant as that is left of 
 some victims after the water-beetles have done 
 with their prey. 
 
 The willows border all the stream here for a 
 short distance. They spring up at irregular inter- 
 vals in other portions. In early June one may 
 walk among these trees and note the many galls 
 that swell out from the willow leaves. The galls 
 are about as big as cherry-stones, or bigger, and 
 there is usually one gall to a leaf, though two are 
 not uncommon, and I have found a leaf with 
 four. Open one of these galls and you will find 
 a very small, yellowish-white worm with six legs 
 and a brown head. Look at the head under a 
 microscope, and the worm appears exactly as if he 
 had clapped on a brown night-cap. This night- 
 cap is hairy, and two black eyes stick out of it. 
 It is very hard work for the worm to walk on
 
 WHIRLIGIGS. 95 
 
 the glass slide, and one can have a good look at 
 him in the midst of his contortions. 
 
 I wonder if such willow-galls have never been 
 used in augury, as have those of the oak. Gerard 
 in his old " Herbal " tells us that " the oke-apples 
 being broken in sunder about the time of their 
 withering doe foreshow the sequell of the yeare, 
 as the expert Kentish husbandmen have observed 
 by the living things found in them ; as, if they 
 finde an ant, they foretell plenty of graine to en- 
 sue ; if a white worm, like a gentill or a magot, 
 then they prognosticate murrain of beasts and 
 cattell ; if a spider, then (say they), we shall have 
 a pestilence, or some such like sickenesse to follow 
 amongst men. These things the learned also 
 have observed and noted ; for Matthiolus, writing 
 upon Dioscorides, saith that, before they have an 
 hole through them, they containe in them either a 
 flie, a spider, or a worme : if a flie, then warre in- 
 sueth ; if a creeping worme, then scarcitie of vic- 
 tuals ; if a running spider, then followeth great 
 sicknesse or mortalitie." 
 
 On these willows, too, in June, I once found a 
 big, green, Sphinx caterpillar, the same shade as 
 the willows, just about a match. He had a spike 
 of a tail, after the manner of his race, and that 
 tail was gorgeous, being blue above and red be- 
 neath. He had eight little buttonholes of pink 
 spiracles on his sides, and was dotted all over with 
 fine white points. There was a well - developer!
 
 96 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 stripe of yellowish-white running obliquely down 
 each side from the tail, and five other, scarcely 
 noticeable, small stripes ran parallel to this on each 
 side. His ridiculous-looking head was bordered 
 on two sides by a rim of yellow, like a picture set 
 in a brass frame, so that his head had the shape 
 of the letter A, without the cross-mark. Besides 
 this he had two white lines that ran the length of 
 his sides. Altogether I was very proud of him, 
 and was always getting scared over his supposed 
 loss, he being so much the color of the willow- 
 leaves that I was always missing him, even when 
 before my eyes. At last I learned to look for his 
 tail and then I could find him. But alas ! one 
 day I could not find his tail. Neither did I find 
 him. The sad truth was apparent. Sphinx had 
 run away. I had not thought such baseness pos- 
 sible in so solemn a creature, always standing in 
 one position, with his head in the air, deep in med- 
 itation. But I never saw him again alive. How- 
 ever, several days after his disappearance, I picked 
 up a jar of water that contained some pond-snails. 
 The inside of the jar was coated with green, and I 
 did not at first notice something of the same color 
 lying at the bottom of the water. But I soon saw 
 it. It was poor Sphinx. He had tumbled into 
 the water and drowned. I helped his corpse out 
 of the water but he never revived. 
 
 What a disreputable set some of these flowers 
 along the fields are ! For instance, take the but-
 
 WHIRLIGIGS. 97 
 
 tercups. Have not they reason to hang their 
 heads in shame when they remember how nearly 
 they are related to the clematis that the English 
 call Beggar's Herb. This plant has leaves that, if 
 applied long to the skin, will make sores, and beg- 
 gars are said sometimes to use the leaves for this 
 purpose in order to draw forth people's compas- 
 sion and money. 
 
 And Thistle over there is no better, for do not 
 his folk make such " thistleries " in Paraguay that 
 robbers can hide among them and attack unwary 
 travellers? And was not Thistle anciently sacred 
 to that disreputable heathen god, Thor ? Did not 
 thistle-blossoms get their color from the lightning? 
 I am afraid Thistle is hardly respectable. 
 
 And as for Mustard, his very name is his dis- 
 grace, for does it not show that the ancient Ro- 
 mans mixed mustard with their sweet wine, or 
 " mustum." I fear that Mustard has been pres- 
 ent at many an orgy. Such disgrace is hardly 
 atoned for by the fact that the ground mustard 
 that Mrs. Clements sent King George I. pleased 
 that grumpy soul and caused his English subjects 
 to approve of the yellow stuff. 
 
 White Yarrow, there, is hardly more decent, 
 for are not his folks used in Sweden in making 
 beer? And if you come to his other name, Achil- 
 lea. did not Achilles kill Memnon, and does not 
 said Memnon's mother, Eos, weep for her son 
 every morning, and so form the dew ? If you do
 
 98 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 not believe that, come here some morning, and 
 look in the grass below Ackillea and see if the 
 tears of Eos do not lie there, at the murderer's 
 feet. When I reflect on all the disgraceful his- 
 tories of these flowers and their relatives I hardly 
 feel like noticing them as I pass by. 
 
 As for the blue lupines that adorn the sides of 
 the road on the hill yonder, they remind one of 
 the dreadful mistake said to have been made by 
 the Germans at one time. For these lupines be- 
 long to the Leguminosce-, the same family that 
 contains the " sweet " and " everlasting " peas that 
 blossom in pink and white and blue in our gar- 
 dens. And it is written, - though whether in 
 tradition or in history I know not, that some 
 Germans at one time thought that sweet -pea 
 seeds would make good eating. So the seeds 
 were ground and mixed with flour, and indeed 
 fine bread was made from it. The Germans 
 thought that they had discovered a wonderful 
 way of proceeding, but after a while those who 
 continually ate the sweet-pea bread began to find 
 their limbs and joints becoming mysteriously 
 stiff. They grew worse and worse, and, by and 
 by, the poisonous bread made the people cripples 
 for life. 
 
 Nor was this all. Some people had fed pigs on 
 such meal, and it is said that the pigs, too, lost 
 the use of their limbs entirely, and fell flat on the 
 ground. Here was a sad state of affairs. Ex-
 
 WHIRLIGIGS. 99 
 
 periments are dangerous things. So thought the 
 German government, and it sent out an order 
 that no one should use any moi-e of the poison- 
 ous sweet-pea* bread. Such are the associations 
 connected with the lupines. 
 
 Still, there are those less depraved among these 
 flowers, and the blackberries by the cliff may re- 
 mind us that their relatives, the strawberries, have 
 comforted many a bereaved German mother in 
 olden times. For when the people of Germany 
 were heathen and worshipped the goddess Frigga, 
 there was a belief among her devotees that on 
 one day of each year Frigga, the invisible, went 
 strawberrying, and when, afterward, she left the 
 earth with her rosy load, she divided her berries 
 among all the little children that had ever died. 
 And, so firmly was this believed in Germany, that 
 on Frigga's strawberrying day, no mother whose 
 little child was dead would ever eat any strawber- 
 ries, for, if she did, her little child would not re- 
 ceive any when Frigga divided her berries among 
 the children in Paradise. 
 
 It is a heathen superstition, and yet who can 
 tell how many mothers' hearts may have been com- 
 forted at the thought that by denying themselves 
 they could add a little to the happiness of those 
 they so sorely missed ? And perhaps there are 
 some of us nowadays who might be benefited by 
 the truth at the heart of the old superstition. For 
 there is a truth here, and it is this. There are
 
 100 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 sacrifices that we may still make for our holy 
 dead. We may take up their work upon the 
 earth. And to every one who does this comes the 
 comfort of the knowledge that heaven and earth 
 are not so far apart, after all.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WATER-LIZARDS AND THEIR ILK. 
 
 "Nay, good my lord, be not afraid." 
 
 King Richard III. 
 
 " THERE are lots of Water-lizards over in the 
 canon in the other creek. They 're red. I go 
 over there sometimes, and may be I '11 bring you 
 some." 
 
 This is the substance of a generous-sounding 
 speech made to me by a lad, but his promise was 
 never fulfilled. The brook and I heard it, but 
 the brook was better than the boy. Either be- 
 fore or after this, I drew my first Water-lizard 
 from these shallows. 
 
 A yellowish beastie he was, about two and 
 three fourths inches long, with a black line run- 
 ning down the middle length of each side. His 
 tail was flattened and spotted with black. He 
 had both anterior and posterior pairs of feet, the 
 forward pair being four-toed, and the hinder pair 
 five-toed. Dark eyes were his, and there were 
 three pairs of reddish-yellow gills. These were 
 very noticeable, standing up like feathers on either 
 side of his head just in front of his legs. These 
 gills gave him a very peculiar look, reminding one
 
 102 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 somewhat of the ruffs that ladies wore in olden 
 times. The pair of gills nearest his head stood 
 upright or nearly so. 
 
 I tried to suit the poor fellow in regard to 
 food, for I put into his jar a few water-shrimps, 
 a small dragon-fly larva, a little red water-worm, 
 an earth-worm, and a small scorpion-bug, but, al- 
 though I do not know what better fare he could 
 have found under the weeds from which I took 
 him, my viands were all thrown away on him. 
 He would have none of them. I think he ate 
 nothing while he lived with me. He seemed to 
 be very much alarmed whenever I came to visit 
 him, and would race around the jar in terror, 
 or look at me through the glass with suspicious 
 eyes. 
 
 And then, alas ! after he had sojourned with 
 me for nine days, I came to his jar to find him 
 lying on his back. He was dead, poor prisoner, 
 and I kept him a long time afterward in a bottle 
 of alcohol. But I regretted that I had not given 
 him a larger dish and a place where he could 
 have come out of the water if he so desired. 
 
 What is there about the lizard-shape that gives 
 one a feeling of dislike ? The creatures are often 
 pretty in coloring, intelligent of eye, and yet one 
 shrinks from them, whether in water or on land, 
 whether of the salamander or of the lizard fam- 
 ily. The matter of likes and dislikes is a curious 
 one. Frogs are not so very far removed from
 
 WATER-LIZARDS AND THEIR ILK. 103 
 
 the lizard shape, and yet with how much more 
 of respect do we look at a frog. And a fat old 
 grandfatherly toad that lived in a hole in our 
 garden once commanded my childish interest, 
 almost affection. But a lizard ! No matter if 
 Wallace does tell us that, on the Ke Islands, he 
 found swarms of little green lizards with tails of 
 the " most heavenly blue," no amount of coloring 
 can make a lizard very acceptable. 
 
 On the hill away beyond those eucalyptus-trees, 
 a party of us one May Day had an adventure with 
 a lizard. The creature had a very long tail. One 
 of the boys tried, with a lad's usual kindness, to 
 stamp on the lizard, when, lo ! it threw off the 
 tail and ran for dear life. 
 
 But the tail ! It went rushing around, looking 
 like a little snake. Perhaps the tail was trying 
 to run after the lizard. At all events our party 
 left looking after the lizard to see what his lively 
 remnant would do. No one dared touch the 
 wriggling thing, until a sturdy carpenter snatched 
 it up. He bequeathed it to me, and I put it in 
 my handkerchief, but before I had walked the 
 half mile home the lizard's memento was quite 
 still. Having a number of Whirligig beetles at 
 the time, I gave them an opportunity to taste of 
 lizard's flesh, but they would have nothing to do 
 with it. Whirligigs have likes and dislikes, after 
 the fashion of human beings. 
 
 The Water - lizards described as living in the
 
 104 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 Bother brook haunted, rne for many a day, till, at 
 
 last, going forth 
 once in April, a 
 friend and 1 made 
 the pilgrimage of 
 
 Trito several miles and 
 
 received our due 
 
 reward. I would advise all goers after Water- 
 lizards to avoid taking a dog with them, espe- 
 cially a frisky dog. Such a one, black, with the 
 merriest eyes I ever saw on a dog, met us and in- 
 sisted on tagging. He was certain we were going 
 to do something that he was interested in, and he 
 invited himself with as much assurance as one 
 would think those old Grecian dogs might have 
 attained to in the days when polished Hellenes, 
 sending notes of invitation to their friends, were 
 wont to be courteous to the friends' dogs, also, and 
 request that they might be brought along. 
 
 This dog had been taking a bath in some pool, 
 as his coat showed, and so enamored was he of 
 the water still, that he rushed at the little way- 
 side stream, plunging in with a vigor that would 
 have made dredging useless, if it had been at- 
 tempted. He came once to pat his paw down 
 where I was striving to find some inhabitant in 
 the mud. 
 
 Fortunately that dog was left behind before 
 the brook was reached, otherwise the Water-liz- 
 ards might not have been caught. The water
 
 WATER-LIZARDS AND THEIR ILK. 105 
 
 under a bridge was quite transparent, and on 
 turning over stones, two of the creatures came in 
 sight. No more were to be found. Probably 
 these had taken a morning gtroll among those 
 stones, and so were caught. Gentle creatures 
 they seemed to be, not much frightened even 
 when the dredger scooped them up singly as they 
 were found, and they came out of the water, the 
 drops falling from the yellow and gray of their 
 skins. 
 
 Before leaving the brook, on vines or weeds be- 
 side it I found a number of the pupae of Frog- 
 hoppers. Spots of white froth look- 
 ing like soap-suds were all that could 
 be seen, but penetrating a white mass 
 I found a little insect looking somewhat 
 like a small lady-bug, the forward part 9 ne of ? iy 
 
 . J ' . larvae of 
 
 of the body being black and white, and Frog -hop - 
 the abdomen red. Crachat de Coucou 
 the French peasants call such spots of 
 froth, and in England they are known as Cuckoo's 
 spittle, or Ecume Printaniere, spring froth. 
 That the cuckoo should be credited with such an 
 overflow of saliva is a mystery only equalled by 
 the fact that other credulous people assert the 
 toad to be the owner of the " spittle." 
 
 The Frog-hopper larvae that I took home were 
 of varying sizes, one being about an eighth of 
 an inch long, others a little larger. In my zeal 
 for Water-lizards I neglected these larvae till the
 
 106 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 spittle of most of them was gone. Then I en- 
 deavored to give the creatures a new supply of 
 fluid by putting cuttings of plants into their 
 bottle. But honeysuckle and rose, chick - weed 
 and lily slips had not the right taste. No weed I 
 could find suited them, the kind on which I found 
 them not growing here, and one by one my Frog- 
 hoppers miserably perished, without having been 
 able to produce any more froth. "The larva of 
 the Aphrophora cannot live long out of its frothy 
 envelope," says Figuier. My last one died five 
 days I believe after I picked the weeds the larvae 
 were on, but the dabs of froth lasted during the 
 first day or two, so that the larvae were not dry 
 all of that time. 
 
 However, on another day, beside that brook 
 I found a mass of foam on a blackberry shoot, 
 and, breaking it off, brought it home. The 
 Frog-hopper larva inside that mass proved to be 
 larger than any of those I had previously found. 
 He was dark, almost black, with a few light 
 marks. 
 
 Calling to mind De Geer's experiment with a 
 similar larva which he compelled to make new 
 froth, I resolved to imitate him. I drew my 
 larva out of his bubbly world and tried to wipe 
 him dry. De Geer thought that the froth serves 
 to protect such creatures from the heat of the sun 
 and from attacks by spiders and other carnivorous 
 creatures. The froth serves, too, I think, as a
 
 WATER-LIZARDS AND THEIR ILK. 107 
 
 sort of drowning-place for other little insects, as I 
 found a small winged creature, perhaps a winged 
 aphis, dead in the froth. 
 
 I had obtained for my larva a shoot of what 
 I supposed was a cultivated blackberry, for I 
 thought that he would not know the difference 
 between the taste of that and the taste of the wild 
 variety. My supposed blackberry shoot, how- 
 ever, was finally discovered to be a raspberry 
 one. After I had wiped the froth from him as 
 well as I could, so that, while not being exactly 
 dry, he had not much moisture on him, he tum- 
 bled into the cup of water in which I had placed 
 the shoot to keep it fresh. He descended to the 
 bottom of the cup, but my rescuing finger was 
 after him, and he clutched it and was saved. 
 However. I did not wipe him dry after his invol- 
 untary plunge. 
 
 I put him on the shoot and he speedily began 
 work. With the constant bending of the hinder 
 portion of the abdomen, little bubble after little 
 bubble collected under him. Within nine or ten 
 minutes he had quite a number, enough to make 
 a small mountain of froth. Still the whole upper 
 surface of his body was uncovered. 
 
 In twenty-five minutes from the time of start- 
 ing, the froth had mounted so high that it began 
 to touch his back. Some of the time he kept his 
 head down to the " blackberry " shoot, as though 
 he might be drawing in juice, as these creatures
 
 108 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 do through their beaks. At other times he 
 raised his head above the shoot, but the hinder 
 part of his body was continually elevated above 
 the fore part, so as to give him the appearance of 
 being just ready to turn a somersault. 
 
 I thought that he was succeeding finely, but, 
 about three quarters of an hour after he first 
 entered into the business of making this batch of 
 foam, the Frog-hopper larva left the place alto- 
 gether and wandered to the end of the shoot, 
 where were some leaves. He still retained some 
 moisture on the under part of his body, but why 
 should he waste the bubbles he had been mak- 
 ing? There they were, a pile of froth, waiting 
 for him while he crawled over the leaves. I 
 picked him up and put him back in his place, 
 but he would not stay there. Away he went 
 toward the leaves again. 
 
 I put him back a second time, and again he 
 fell into the water. This second bath sobered 
 him, I think, for he recommenced work. Per- 
 haps the reason why he left his froth was that he 
 remembered that he had not explored the shoot, 
 and, inasmuch as he did not expect to make any 
 more journeys after the froth had once closed 
 over his head, he thought he would stop work and 
 travel a little. This was what I thought at iirst. 
 But after he had made another pile of froth 
 about as big as the former one, he again left it 
 and wandered off.
 
 WATER-LIZARDS AND THEIR ILK. 109 
 
 The truth dawned upon me. That fellow was 
 smarter than I had thought. He did know the 
 difference between the cultivated raspberry and 
 the wild kind of blackberry. He did not like the 
 raspberry. Hoping that he would not oblige me 
 to journey to the brook for his food, T gave him 
 a shoot of wild blackberry that I had kept in a 
 pail for the needs of any of my menagerie. 
 
 Frog-hopper did not like the looks of mv pres- 
 ent. He had never been taught the polite truth 
 embodied in the maxim that one should not look 
 a gift-horse in the mouth. That part of Frog- 
 hopper's education had been neglected. He 
 looked over my shoot but did not offer to make 
 any froth. It was quite apparent that the shoot 
 was not fresh enough to suit him, and he was 
 waiting to have a better one appear. Overawed 
 by his wisdom in regard to blackberry shoots, I 
 put on my hat, snatched the scissors, hastened to 
 the creek, swung myself under a fence, and, in 
 spite of the proximity of a number of boys, se- 
 cured my fresh wild-blackberry shoots, and came 
 home. 
 
 That was exactly what Frog -hopper wanted, 
 and, after considerable delay, he proceeded to 
 bury himself in foam, and succeeded so well that 
 at about half-past nine P. M., when I gave him a 
 farewell look for the night, all that could be dis- 
 tinctly seen of him was a little black dot, a por- 
 tion of the hinder end of the body. All the rest 
 was covered in the foam.
 
 110 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 Still it would manifestly be impossible to bring 
 up such a larva on a shoot. This was shown next 
 day when the branch, although propped by pieces 
 of coal in the water, would not stand up securely, 
 and Frog-hopper's mass of foam hung down so 
 that it would not cover his back. He became 
 disgusted and again went on his travels. So I 
 journeyed to the brook and dug up a couple of 
 scrawny little blackberries, planted them at home, 
 conveyed Frog-hopper to the spot, put him 011 a 
 leaf, and tied a cloth around that branch to make 
 sure that I should see him again. I furthermore 
 tasted both the cultivated raspberry and the wiW 
 blackberry, and I came to the conclusion that there 
 is a difference in the flavor of the sap. The wild 
 blackberry is more pleasant. I did not wonder 
 that Frog-hopper knew that I had not given him 
 the right thing at first. There is not much use 
 trying to fool a bug. He is generally smarter 
 than he looks. 
 
 I untied the cloth next day. Frog-hopper was 
 there, but he was without any froth. Disgusted 
 with his tribe, I bundled him into a tin, took him 
 to the brook, put him on a leaf of a blackberry 
 vine, and gave him my parting blessing. Such 
 bugs -are nuisances. 
 
 " Flea - grasshoppers," Sauterelles - Puces, does 
 Swammerdam call these Frog-hoppers, because the 
 adults jump like fleas. And one European kind, 
 prone to live on fern-stalks and thistles, has the
 
 WATER-LIZARDS AND THEIR ILK. Ill 
 
 complimentary title of " h Petit Diable." But I 
 fear these Frog-hoppers are to be classed among 
 the injurious insects. It is very well for them to 
 attack weeds by a brook, but the Frog-hoppers 
 need not pretend that they never visit anything 
 else. And many such creatures on cultivated 
 plants would kill them, as the people of the 
 Basses-Alpes could testify. For does not a Frog- 
 hopper, Jassus dei'astatans, make bold to hop 
 on their young corn and lay waste their cereals ? 
 Frog-hoppers are certainly bad creatures, not wor- 
 thy of our further consideration. Let us turn 
 from them to the subject of this chapter. 
 
 The first morning after I caught the Water- 
 lizards, I thought one had escaped, for I went 
 to the dish and found but one in the water. 
 Further search, however, discovered Number Two 
 snugly hidden in the cloth that I had tied around 
 the dish the night before. He received the re- 
 ward of his wanderings in being obliged to hang 
 by one of his hind feet till I could cut a thread of 
 the cloth that had become wound around one of 
 his legs. His tiny little hand looked almost hu- 
 man as I held him during the operation. 
 
 This adventure did not deter him from going 
 again and again into the cloth. I suppose he slept 
 there sometimes nights. It became my custom to 
 run niy hand around the dish mornings before un- 
 tying the cloth, and I often felt his body lying 
 somewhere beneath. It gave me the sensation of
 
 112 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 a corpse under a grave-cloth. He did not attempt 
 to run, but would wait for me to untie the cloth 
 and take him up ignominiously by the tail and 
 put him in the water. I have an idea that some- 
 times I put him in sooner than he liked. 
 
 The other Water-lizard was not quite so bold. 
 I took her to be a lady. She was given to hiding 
 under the stones 1 put in the dish, and but seldom 
 did she ascend to hide in the cloth. Occasionally, 
 however, I found both there, and put them back 
 in their watery home. 
 
 Darby and Joan were the names of my friends. 
 It was easy enough to tell when Darby had been 
 spending some time out of water. His coat above 
 would be of a dark color that would last nearly 
 all day, even when he stayed in the water, and it 
 would be late in the afternoon before he would be 
 of the same color as Joan, a sort of grayish yellow. 
 Both were brighter yellow beneath, and neither 
 had gills. Their eyes had a greenish color, and 
 the creatures were four-toed in front and five-toed 
 behind. Their heads were much like those of 
 frogs, noticeably so as I would sit looking at the 
 dish and see Darby's head come rising up to the 
 margin. Seeing 110 body, one would certainly 
 have said that a frog was coming. Darby was 
 six and a half inches long, for I measured him one 
 day. It was easy enough to control him. and hold 
 him in place by his tail while measuring him. I 
 do not think that he admired the performance.
 
 WATER-LIZARDS AND THEIR ILK. Ho 
 
 although he never seemed to dare to refuse to do 
 what I required him to. Yet he strove to free 
 himself, and was probably glad when I let go. 
 Joan was shorter, being barely six inches long. 
 Every little while these two would lift their heads 
 suddenly up to the surface of the water, or above 
 it, as if to snap up something, and immediately 
 a bubble or two of air would appear on the sur- 
 face. 
 
 Thirteen days after Darby and Joan first en- 
 tered my dish, a girl came to see me. She is one 
 of the few persons of my acquaintance who are 
 interested in " bugs," and she had corne in to ex- 
 patiate on the beauty of a dragon-fly larva of hers 
 that had just taken off its skin, and presented a 
 beautiful, velvety appearance. From dragon-flies 
 the talk whisked to the small tortricid moths that, 
 as caterpillars, curl the leaves of rose-bushes, and 
 I invited her into the back yard to see if any more 
 of my tortricid pupae had opened. 
 
 While there I was reminded of my Water-liz- 
 ards, and proceeded with some enthusiasm to un- 
 tie the cloth in order to show Darby and Joan to 
 the visitor's admiring gaze. Off came the cloth. 
 Nothing was to be seen of Darby and Joan, but 
 that was not strange, since they were given to 
 hiding themselves under the grass. So I pulled 
 it aside and took out some of the stones. The 
 polliwogs wriggled blissfully, but no Darby and 
 Joan appeared.
 
 114 UP AND DOWN THE BROOK*. 
 
 "I guess they're in the cloth," I said, with an 
 uneasy foreboding of evil. 
 
 I shook the rag. 
 
 Alas, alas ! 
 
 The truth was apparent. Darby and Joan had 
 run away. 
 
 How they had managed it was a mystery. I 
 had tied the cloth on as usual. Perhaps it was a 
 little loose, and it may be that by great struggles 
 those creatures, almost as pliable as slugs, slipped 
 through and fled. 
 
 The girl went away almost immediately, and I 
 rushed back to the dish. Away went the box of 
 bottles and tins of insects, up came the heavy 
 boards ; into every crack and cranny among the 
 sweet alyssum did we look, but a dried Darby or 
 a parched Joan appeared not. 
 
 I am quite certain that Joan never planned 
 that escape. She need not come back to apolo- 
 gize. I exonerate her entirely. She was of too 
 meek a nature to propose such a thing, or else she 
 was a tremendous hypocrite. I know well enough 
 that it was Darby the daring that found the way 
 out and persuaded her to follow, but, inasmuch as 
 there was no water in the open world to which he 
 invited her, I very much fear that Joan's fidelity 
 was rewarded by a dry death. 
 
 Still, I am glad to have become acquainted, 
 though so briefly, with Water-lizards. It is some- 
 thing to have even seen an animal, as poor Paolo
 
 WATER-LIZARDS AND THEIR ILK. 115 
 
 Uccello might testify from his own mistake. Alas, 
 poor man ! Being at work decorating the arch of 
 the Peruzzi, he placed in the rectangular sections 
 in the corners one of the four elements accom- 
 panied by some appropriate animal : to the earth 
 a mole, to the water a fish, to the fire a sala- 
 mander, and, since the old notion was that a cha- 
 meleon lived on air, he was to paint one of those 
 creatures in the right place for that element. 
 
 But Paolo had never seen a chameleon, and, 
 being deceived by the similarity of the names, 
 what did he do but paint a camel with wide-open 
 mouth swallowing the air. "And herein," says 
 Vasari, " was his simplicity certainly very great ; 
 taking the mere resemblance of the camel's name 
 as a sufficient representation of, or allusion to, an 
 animal which is like a little dry lizard, while the 
 camel is a great ungainly beast."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 
 
 " By being seldom seen, I could not stir 
 But like a comet I was wondered at." 
 
 King Henry IV. 
 
 A WHILE ago I heard of a heroic act of self- 
 sacrifice. A neighbor of mine, a good - hearted 
 youth, is an enthusiast about bugs. He is also a 
 member of that institution of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, the Salvation Army. 
 
 One evening, when he with some other mem- 
 bers was holding a street-meeting, and was just 
 in the act of kneeling for prayer, the eyes of this 
 person fell on a bug, or beetle. Perhaps it was 
 an emissary of Satan to tempt my neighbor, but 
 at all events it was a new bug to him. He could 
 not have helped seeing the insect in the light on 
 the street, but it was an awkvyard moment for 
 such a discovery. Should he seize that bug, or 
 remain in a reverent attitude ? 
 
 Devoutness conquered, and the bug escaped. 
 Perhaps a scorner of bugs might think this a 
 trivial act of self-denial, but a bug-hunter could 
 have given no better proof of religious earnest- 
 ness.
 
 MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 117 
 
 % ' Do you really think they 're alive ? " said 
 the same person to me, when I met him on the 
 hill one day and offered him my jar for inspec- 
 tion. 
 
 I had been making a call on the Mud Folk. 
 There are a good many of them beside this 
 brook. They are not wont to receive my calls 
 with enthusiasm, neither do they press me to 
 come again. But I dig into their habitations 
 without ceremony. The question of my neighbor 
 referred to a long hair-worm, Gordius, that I 
 had taken from his mansion in the mud and was 
 conveying home. 
 
 On my affirming my certain belief in the life 
 of the creatures, the lad said, " But folks say 
 they 're horse-hairs. I used to see lots of them. 
 They 're not all black ; some are red. I used to 
 think it was because they were different colored 
 hairs. Did you ever try putting horse-hairs in 
 water and letting them come alive? I used to 
 do it when I was a little fellow, but I never made 
 much of a success at it." 
 
 I should think not ! Poor Gordius aquaticus. 
 Will human beings never become tired of repeat- 
 ing that old story of the horse-hair ? 
 
 In an evil hour I resolved to experiment on 
 that Gordius. I was moved thereto by reading 
 a statement in some book that certain hair-worms 
 can be dried into brittle threads and yet will be- 
 come active on being moistened.
 
 118 
 
 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 So I put my friend into a dry bottle and left 
 him for about a day. He was then a 
 miserable little ball with 110 apparent 
 life, but I gave him some water and 
 he was soon stretching himself in it. 
 He was unmistakably alive. 
 
 Rejoiced at my success I allowed 
 Gordius only a few minutes' happiness. 
 I resolved that I would try him with a 
 longer drying spell. Two days should 
 be the limit this time ; and into the 
 driest of tin cans went poor Gordius. 
 I think it was a few hours over 
 the allotted time when I remembered 
 my captive. He was wofully dry, but 
 I had hopes of him and put him into 
 his bottle of water. 
 But it had been too much of an experiment for 
 poor Gordius. His body became plump and 
 round, but there was no life in him. Even when 
 he had stayed in the water over night and all the 
 next day, he was motionless and allowed me to 
 measure him, a thing that he refused to do when 
 alive. He was about thirteen inches long. I had 
 thought that when alive he was considerably over 
 a foot in length, but perhaps his drying shrunk 
 
 him. 
 
 I* 
 
 There are numbers of big flies sitting on that 
 
 margin where the sun shines so warmly. Are 
 they not also Mud Folk? If St. Macarius 
 
 Gordius 
 aquations.
 
 MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 119 
 
 lived in these days, he might come here for flies, 
 though they have never bitten me. Perhaps I 
 have never given them the opportunity that he 
 gave such creatures in those marshes of Scete 
 which contained multitudes of huge flies " whose 
 stings pierce even wild boars.'' For the legend 
 goes that feeling a gnat bite him one day, he, like 
 any ordinary mortal, killed the creature. But, 
 immediately, so they tell us, his saintly mind was 
 overcome with remorse at having lost so good an 
 opportunity of mortifying the flesh. With zeal- 
 ous haste he rushed from his cell to the marshes, 
 and there, amid the flies, abode half a year, and 
 when at last he returned to his friends he was so 
 disfigured a man that he was to be known by his 
 voice only. 
 
 In view of such self-mortification as this, it is 
 reassuring to ordinary mortals to remember the 
 other legend of St. Bernard, who is said to have 
 become one day so annoyed by a blue-bottle fly 
 that buzzed about his ears that he said, peevishly, 
 " Be thou excommunicated," and lo ! the flies of 
 the whole district dropped dead. 
 
 These big flies are not extremely interesting 
 objects. Nothing about a fly is, to my mind. He 
 is associated with too many unpleasant recollec- 
 tions for me to rejoice in his children or in any 
 of his relations. He is an insect known to all 
 people. 
 
 On a fence that walks up a hill I once found
 
 120 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 in August a number of big Horse-Hies sitting in 
 the sun. I clapped my tin over one of them, but 
 so anxious was he to get away that I bruised one 
 of his wings before I could draw my handkerchief 
 tightly between him and the fence. He was big 
 and black, and his thorax was crested with a stout- 
 looking brownish shield that covered him like a 
 breast-plate put on the wrong side. lie buzzed 
 like a bumble-bee when he flew, but when exam- 
 ined he was seen to differ in having no hairy body 
 but a deep-black one. It is only the female 
 Horse-flies that bite, it is said, the males, like 
 those of the Mosquito, living on the juices of 
 flowers. The insect creation serves sometimes to 
 emphasize the opinion of the ages as to woman's 
 temper. I passed a number of cows back 011 the 
 meadow, but the grass prevented any of them 
 from being thin enough to represent that ungal- 
 lant fiction of the French mind, the " Ckichi- 
 Vache,'' 1 or " sorry cow," a monster that was said 
 to' be exceedingly thin. Its diet consisted of 
 good women only, and the " Chichi- Vache " was 
 all skin and bone, because its food was so ex- 
 tremely scarce, such females being very rare. 
 
 When you raise the mosquito-bar that covers 
 the top of the fly -larvae tin, little black specks 
 fly out. These on being looked at closely resolve 
 themselves into minute flies that are hardly 
 bigger than the small black ants that visit the 
 tin. Small beetles, and beetle-pupas of the Sta2>hy-
 
 MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 121 
 
 Hnidce, are also in such mud beside the brook, 
 and earth-worms abound. The little black bee- 
 tles are determined not to be captured, however, 
 and even if you put half a dozen in your tin 
 and pat down some earth over the mud, up come 
 the beetles through the earth and straight to the 
 top of the tin they go. 
 
 Perhaps another time when you raise the mos- 
 quito-bar of your tin another fly, about the size 
 of a small house-fly, stands waiting for release, 
 though whether he came from the mud or slipped 
 under the mosquito-bar from outside is a ques- 
 tion. 
 
 But in all my digging in the mud I have 
 never found any swallows, and have never verified 
 the statement that truthful Mr. Harrington made 
 to Mr. Pepys in 1663 that December day in the 
 coffee-house, " Swallows are often brought up in 
 their nets out of the mudd from under water, 
 hanging together to some twigg or other, dead in 
 ropes, and brought to the fire will come to life." 
 
 Yet I venture to say that many people could 
 not tell me the names of the real Mud Folk, and 
 the guesses might be as false as the swallow- 
 story that was told of the " country above Quins- 
 borough." 
 
 Innocent Mr. Pepys ! He seems to have be- 
 lieved all that was told to him. I am afraid he 
 did not go poking around in the mud enough 
 when he was a boy. I should think that he was
 
 122 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 the sort of man who could be deceived by the 
 imitation-insects said to be manufactured by de- 
 ceptive bug-dealers for the cheating of the un- 
 learned purchaser. 
 
 Among the more minute inhabitants of this 
 brook are the entomostracans, known as Water- 
 fleas, Cypris, Cyclops, etc. In a small puddle 
 containing two or three teacupfuls of water you 
 will see swarms, hundreds of 
 Cyprides in their two-pieced 
 horny shells. Cypris is ex- 
 tremely lively in the water, 
 
 but take him out and put him 
 Cypris unifasciata. Qn ft glags sli( j e j n & drop of 
 
 water and he usually keeps those finely-fringed 
 antennae and feet inside his shell where the would- 
 be see-er cannot look at 
 them. Occasionally, how- 
 ever, he protrudes them, 
 and whirls around at a 
 great rate, demanding to 
 be put back into the wa- 
 ter where it is deep 
 enough for him to swim. 
 
 There is nothing that 
 will make the wrinkles 
 Cyclops communis. come more qu i c kl y tnan 
 
 daily squinting at such creatures as these. They 
 are so small, and yet one wants to see their 
 swimming feats, and continually puts one's eyes
 
 MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 123 
 
 on the strain to observe them. And when you 
 mix them with a number of the genus Cyclops 
 there is perpetual commotion. I once had a 
 jelly-glass of water full of such creatures, and 
 in the time I kept them I nearly obtained one or 
 two wrinkles in the middle of my forehead. Any 
 one who wishes to cultivate wrinkles will please 
 take notice that squinting at Water-fleas is the 
 surest and quickest way I have yet discovered. 
 But it is interesting work to watch the entomos- 
 tracans through the glass. The lady Cyclops will 
 shoot by bearing two egg-masses nicely balanced 
 on either side, and Cypris with all his brethren 
 will skim around over the floor of the jelly-glass 
 looking at a glance like a lot of little spiders in 
 for a swim. Multitudes of the fossil shells of 
 the Cyprides are said to be found in the Wealden 
 rocks of England, in the limestone of the carbo- 
 niferous series, etc. Such little creatures make 
 more marks on the earth sometimes than men do, 
 a fact that is sufficiently humbling to human 
 pride. 
 
 Another quite lively and brilliant little crea- 
 ture that I have found here in March is a "water- 
 mite," one of the Hydrachniclce. Bright red is 
 this mite, so much so that it looks almost like an 
 animated speck of blood as it goes through the 
 water. Its color forms a strange contrast to the 
 usual tints of water - creatures, which are com- 
 monly dark, or yellowish white.
 
 124 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 This red mite has eight legs, and in shape is 
 much like a small spider. To look at the mite, 
 one would hardly think that it belonged in the 
 water, but it seems much at home in that ele- 
 ment, and I fear that when in the larval state the 
 creature is too much at home for the comfort of 
 
 Water-mite Adult. Water-mite Larva. 
 
 Hydrachna geograpkica, magnified. 
 
 the other water creatures from which it takes its 
 food. For some of the larvae of the Hydrach- 
 nidce are said to be parasitic on the gills of mus- 
 sels, and other larvae hang on the Water-skater 
 family, the Hydrometridce. Ranatra and the 
 Water-scorpions are also said to be bearers of 
 the nymphs of these pests. Some of the Water- 
 tiger beetles, Dytiscidce, are devourers of the 
 adult mites, however, so justice is sometimes 
 meted out to these evil-doers. Between the 
 leeches and the water-mites, one might think 
 that sometimes the life of the bravest bug or 
 beetle in the brook would become intolerable.
 
 MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 125 
 
 You sit down on a bank and think yourself 
 alone. But there are many eyes on you. You 
 hear a rustle, and behold a little white frog is 
 hopping away from your feet. Aphides alight on 
 your shoulder, and now would that a person might 
 have as acute hearing as the mythic Heimdall 
 had, he who lived in the fort at the end of the 
 rainbow, and had so fine ears that he could hear 
 " the wool growing on the backs of sheep and the 
 grass springing in the meadows." For, if we had 
 such ears we might hear many a bug and beetle 
 and spider in this supposed-uninhabited nook say- 
 ing to each other, " Who is the giant who has 
 come here and why has he come? This part of 
 the world belongs to us. We are the Brookside 
 Folk." 
 
 And you reflect that the spiders and beetles 
 and bugs really have more to substantiate their 
 claims .than had those " Three Tailors " whom 
 Carlyle mentions as addressing Parliament and 
 the Universe, sublimely styling themselves, " We, 
 the People of England." 
 
 Ants walk beside our pool on the mud near the 
 margin. What may be their errand there I do 
 not know, for there are no live-oaks or willows in 
 that particular spot to attract them. Where wil- 
 lows grow you may find the backs of the leaves 
 brown with aphides that the ants are visiting. 
 The Portuguese of Brazil call the ant the King 
 of that country, and the peasants of Cornwall say
 
 126 rrp AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 that ants are " Muryans," or small people of the 
 fairy tribe, "in a state of decay from off the 
 earth." 
 
 Whatever they are, they boldly intrude into a 
 bug-keeper's tins. I have, in feeding my cater- 
 pillars with leaves, carelessly put in some that 
 had aphides living on them, and on looking in 
 once I saw two ants, each carrying an aphis in 
 his mouth. Evidently the ants were going to 
 bear the aphides to some spot that in ant-judg- 
 ment was better adapted for their cows than my 
 tins were. I doubt, however, whether the ants 
 could squeeze through the mosquito-bar with such 
 burdens. 
 
 The black polliwogs come very near being 
 Mud Folks in April. One will find the water 
 black with a quivering company of them next to 
 shore, or directly on it where the water just 
 covers their backs from the sun's rays. 1 am 
 afraid some of these black polliwogs miscalculate 
 sometimes, or are thrust by some cruel fate a frac- 
 tion of an inch out of their element, for one can 
 sometimes see them above water-line, miserably 
 waiting till the sun shall dry them up or till 
 some kind hand shall put them into the water 
 again. If the latter, their passiveness vanishes, 
 and they go off through the water, shaking them- 
 selves with happiness. I wonder if, when those 
 unlucky Lycian shepherds who mocked Latona 
 received their punishment of being turned into
 
 MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 127 
 
 frogs, it was decreed that they should pass through 
 the polliwog state? That would have been too 
 cruel, to condemn mortals, who had been used to 
 having feet and using them to escape from dan- 
 gers, to a footless condition wherein they would be 
 comparatively helpless. I am sure a tadpole must 
 feel proud of his first pair of feet, albeit they 
 are his hind ones. 
 
 Strings of eggs are toad's ; round eggs are 
 frog's, say the books. I remember finding here, 
 one March, a long string of double black dots 
 enclosed in yellow jelly, and taking it home I had 
 the pleasure of seeing the dots lengthen till the 
 polliwogs' tails stood out of the mass in all di- 
 rections. And finally the whole polliwogs would 
 slip out and sink down through the water in a 
 half-alive way, as though they really did not 
 know whether they were glad to be in the world 
 o* not. They gather courage after a time, how- 
 ever, and conclude that it is a fine world, after 
 all, and it is a blissful thing to waddle in it. 
 
 I found here two boys inspecting a can of 
 theirs one afternoon. They were seated on a 
 bank, and their can contained a collection of little 
 frogs, etc. 
 
 " What do you do with them ?" I queried. 
 
 " Have fights and see which side whips," ex- 
 plained one youngster. 
 
 And forthwith, aided by his companion, he 
 made clear to my comprehension the joyful man- 
 ner in which the fight was to be conducted.
 
 128 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 " The side that whips we 're going to give that 
 pond," said one, pointing to quite a pool. 
 
 " And what becomes of the side that gets 
 whipped ? " I asked. 
 
 " You can't do much with them, but throw 
 them away. They 're mostly dead, anyhow," was 
 the answer. 
 
 And then they explained to me that different 
 kinds of " bugs " were on opposite sides and the 
 fight took place in a tub of clear water. 
 
 And the boys solemnly assured me that "this 
 kind of bug " (pointing out a water-shrimp that 
 was walking on the black mud) attacked the pol- 
 liwogs. 
 
 " Guess they suck their blood," said one boy. 
 
 He stated for a fact what I have never noticed 
 a shrimp doing, but what I should not be at all 
 surprised to see such a crustacean do, that one of 
 them will catch hold of the polliwog by the throat 
 and kill it. 
 
 "They don't do it in the pond, but when 
 they 're shut up together they do," said one boy. 
 
 " It 's fun to see them fight," said another of the 
 youngsters. 
 
 And having obtained as many creatures as 
 they wanted the boys ran off. 
 
 But those creatures on the " side that whips " 
 must think they have won a glorious prize, the 
 pool that is theirs by good right anyway. 
 
 Here may one find in March the larvae of May-
 
 MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 129 
 
 flies with branchiae ou their sides and slender 
 bristles behind. These creatures seem to have 
 an unaccountable tendency toward death. They 
 appear very lively as they skip along through the 
 water after their pretty fashion, but take them 
 home and try to keep them until transformation 
 and you will be likely to make a failure with 
 most of them. Heartless things they are, too, 
 capable of hustling about the dead bodies of their 
 brethren in a most unfeeling manner. It is well 
 that death does not frighten them, else their lives 
 in a pool would be full of terror. If I were one 
 of the water-creatures I should constantly be ex- 
 pecting my own demise, though I should keep my 
 eyes open, not shut, as did Cosmo de Medici, of 
 whom it is related that, a short time before his 
 death, his wife asking why he kept his eyes shut, 
 he replied, " to get them in the way of it." A 
 water-insect having no eye-lids could hardly fol- 
 low the Italian's example. 
 
 Multitudes of mosquitoes must go forth from 
 some of these pools in the course of the summer. 
 It is strange that there is hardly a bit of land or 
 water that is not claimed by some of the lower 
 creatures. We do not know it, perhaps, but we 
 learn it after a while. One may collect insects 
 in one's own neighborhood for a long time, and 
 yet may be astonished at finding new ones in 
 the next hollow. So, after a time, one conies to 
 believe Charles Kingsley's saying, "He is a
 
 130 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 thoroughly good naturalist who knows his own 
 parish thoroughly." 
 
 But one does not need to be much of an en- 
 tomologist to be acquainted with the mosquito, 
 although acquaintance with the eggs of that insect 
 is a different matter. 
 
 The mosquito was the first boat-builder. Of 
 that I am certain. % 
 
 " Vessels large may venture more, 
 
 But little boats should keep near shore," 
 
 says wise B. Franklin. Mrs. Mosquito has prob- 
 ably heard of that bit of wisdom, for she some- 
 times chooses such very small puddles in which to 
 sail her boats that a careless cow, stepping in, 
 tramples the puddle out of existence, much to the 
 detriment of mosquito children, no doubt. 
 
 You will take Mrs. Mosquito's boat for a bit 
 of soot, if you are not careful. But pick it up 
 and you will see the tiny eggs massed together 
 so regularly, the whole narrowing toward either 
 end according to boat-shape. You cannot make 
 such a boat sink. Put it into a bottle and pour 
 in water. The mosquito-boat will always come 
 up on top, if the eggs have not hatched. Mos- 
 quitoes vary in the length of time they require 
 ere they can come forth to bid defiance to man- 
 kind. Some that I had took sixty-eight days or 
 more, I believe, but those mosquitoes must have 
 been quite a dilatory set, the usual time being 
 about four weeks after hatching. Mine were a
 
 MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 131 
 
 fall brood, however, hatching from the egg Octo- 
 ber 3, as animated whitish commas with black 
 heads. 
 
 Mosquito infants are really bright-appearing 
 persons. A good many people are not aware that 
 there are two forms of these creatures before 
 they have wings. A man with whom I once con- 
 versed, while knowing mosquito " boats " and 
 mosquito " wrigglers," was yet ignorant that there 
 is a middle pupa stage of " tumblers," as the 
 club-shaped creatures are called. The tumblers 
 are said not to eat anything, so one can hardly 
 wonder at the hunger of the winged creatures 
 that come from them. Well do I remember 
 spending a night among the swamps of the Sac- 
 ramento River, when a child, and seeing the 
 enormous swarms of mosquitoes above the trees, 
 humming like a lot of bees. Wise writers say 
 that the lady mosquitoes alone bite, and that the 
 gentlemen content themselves with dwelling in 
 swamps and woods. But four trustworthy people 
 and two veracious horses could testify that there 
 were a large delegation of lady mosquitoes in the 
 Sacramento swamps that night, and that fire and 
 smoke did not prevail against them. 
 
 The Flamen Dialis, priest of Jupiter, was an- 
 ciently not allowed to touch a trailing vine. The 
 poison-oak along this creek seems to be deter- 
 mined to enforce the same rule on everybody as 
 far as these blackberry-vines are concerned, for
 
 132 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 the two plants here grow together, and the would- 
 be inspector of blackberry leaves has to be very 
 careful lest he should lay hold of the wrong plant. 
 
 But if, on the last day of April or the first or 
 second of May, one has patience to edge one's 
 way along the bank, holding to the fence with 
 one hand and stretching out the other, grabbing 
 with judicious care, one may reach berry-leaves 
 done up in a suspicious style. Pick them and 
 open the leaves so bound together or folded, and 
 you will' find within each bundle a small green 
 worm with a darker head, one of the Tortricidce, 
 or Pyralidce, for I believe authors differ some- 
 what in regard to the two families. At all events 
 such worms are destined to become pretty little 
 moths some day. 
 
 But, if you find the right leaf, on its back you 
 may have the delight of seeing a family of little 
 bugs just hatched and sitting together on top of 
 the eggs they have come out of. I have found 
 the same kind of eggs on the back of a honey- 
 suckle leaf in my yard. There are about fourteen 
 eggs in a group, and they are very pretty, barrel- 
 shaped, of a pure white, but marked with red 
 before the inhabitants come out. Hardly one 
 sixteenth of an inch high are the little barrels, 
 looking a little like the pictures of the egg-bar- 
 rels of the Harlequin Cabbage-bug, Murgantia 
 histrionica, or the Calico-back, but lacking the 
 black hoops and bung-holes of the eggs of that
 
 MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 133 
 
 enemy of farmers. But there are lids to these 
 
 blackberry-leaf barrels, or at least 
 
 there is a rim around each top edged 
 
 with little hairs, and when the young -! 
 
 bug has cut its way out with a neat- Eggs on back of 
 
 ness and accuracy that could not be blackberry leaf, 
 
 111111 enlarged. 
 
 surpassed, behold the " cutest white 
 lid in the world stands just a crack open on top 
 of the empty, almost transparently-white " bar- 
 rel." You can take a pin and open the lid if you 
 do not push too hard. If you are not careful, 
 though, it will come entirely off. There seems 
 to be a sort of dark projection on the middle 
 of the open side of the lid. Perhaps it is some- 
 thing to keep the lid part-way open when the 
 young bug is crawling out. Who knows ? 
 
 The eggs are placed in quite regular rows. I 
 have found the fourteen in rows of the following 
 numbers : three, four, four, three. In another 
 case the fourteen were in this order : four, four, 
 four with the second one raised above the others, 
 two. 
 
 The young bugs that come from such eggs are 
 of necessity small. They are six-legged, 
 with broad ending antennae, and the 
 front half of each body is reddish brown, 
 while the hinder half is lighter with four Little 
 brown marks, and a row of brownish JjjJf.l'JjJ 
 dots forming an edge to the body. larged. 
 
 These less than pin-head-size larval bugs have
 
 134 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 brave spirits ; for a day old fellow climbed clear 
 to the top of the glass fruit jar in which I kept 
 them, and if I had not had paper tied over 
 the top he would have gone forth to seek his for- 
 tune.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CADDIS-WORMS. 
 
 " Sometimes he angers me 
 
 With telling me of the mold warp and the ant," 
 "And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff 
 As puts me from my faith.' ? 
 
 King Henry IV. 
 
 IN the other brook, on stones in the water, yet 
 near the margin, I have found small Caddis-worms 
 in their tubes. ' Among those that I once brought 
 home was a little fellow barely three eighths of an 
 inch long. He had made his tiny case of grains 
 of sand and minute stones very neatly put to- 
 gether. 
 
 For a time I gazed upon him, and then com- 
 menced the struggle of Sandy's life. Very care- 
 fully I began to take his covering to pieces, 
 intending to see him make a new one. 
 But so tenacious were the materials that I 
 only succeeded in making a hole in the my cases 
 hinder portion, leaving a little of his body p^K. g 
 exposed. I was too much afraid of hurt- fly larva 
 ing him to go on. 
 
 But I had done enough. Sandy knew the dan- 
 gers of having holes in one's clothes. He would 
 attend to that rent immediately. 
 
 I
 
 136 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 I handed him a little stone ; he clutched it and 
 proceeded to undress, regardless of spectators. 
 His covering was a very tight one, however, and 
 it was very hard work. I think he would proba- 
 bly have succeeded in his efforts without my aid, 
 but I " lent a hand," as Mr. Hale suggests. The 
 dress was so tight around the neck that Sandy 
 looked as if he were choking. But at the end of 
 almost half an hour, Sandy caught hold of another 
 caddis, I caught hold of Sandy, and he drew him- 
 self out. 
 
 There he was, a poor, naked, yellow worm in 
 the waste of mighty waters contained in a small 
 plate. 
 
 Now Sandy was in business. I had thought 
 that he would be so exhausted he would lie down 
 and rest after taking off that garment. But no. 
 He was immediately at work. How did he know 
 but a fish might be coming to swallow him before 
 he could get covered again ? There was no time 
 to be lost, in his opinion. 
 
 Poor Sandy ! How he did toil and tug over 
 the little stones. His black, ant-like head and 
 yellow body with its two terminal hooks went 
 squirming around under and over the stones. I 
 did not understand his movements at the time. I 
 thought he was debating whether he should make 
 his new covering out of stones or of sand. I had 
 destroyed his former garment so that he was 
 obliged to make an entirely new one.
 
 CADDIS- WORMS. 137 
 
 But I saw afterwards that what he had been 
 doing was to anchor himself for his future work ; 
 since subsequently, when- he was making his new 
 coat, he was so attached to the larger stones that 
 I could pull him around by moving any of the 
 half-dozen around him. They seemed to be all 
 connected by some thread-like substance, and I 
 thought it a very sensible idea of Sandy's, for it 
 would have been awkward work dress-making, I 
 suppose, without a certainty that he could keep 
 in a fixed place. 
 
 Being anchored, Sandy worked. It lacked a 
 few minutes of seven hours after this when Sandy 
 slipped down his body the first section of his new 
 dress. He had seemingly made this thin section 
 round about his body near his head, and then he 
 caught hold of a little stone that I had pushed 
 near him, and with mighty squirmings slipped the 
 section down toward the other end of his body. 
 This was probably the " trying-on " part of the 
 dressmaking. The garment was to be a " glove- 
 fit," without wrinkles, hence Sandy's feats in wrig- 
 gling. 
 
 In making the section he seemed to pick up 
 the sand-grains and manipulate them ; but Sandy 
 need not have been afraid of my stealing his trade, 
 for though the operation went on under my eyes, 
 I could not tell at all how it was done. The first 
 section covered nearly half his body, exclusive of 
 his head. He manipulated a while longer, and
 
 138 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 drew the section down further still. I had been 
 thinking that he had not drawn it quite far 
 enough, for I was almost sure I saw one of the 
 hooks at the end of his body peeping out. That 
 showed afterward, too, for the section went up 
 near Sandy's head again, and left his rear half 
 bare. But Sandy knew what he was about. He 
 had made a dress before. He caught hold of 
 the stone and shoved the dress down his back 
 again. 
 
 Then I went to bed and left Sandy to his job. 
 It was "quite a chore," as a neighbor of mine 
 says of other things. 
 
 When I arose the next morning, Sandy appar- 
 ently had not made much progress in the length 
 of his garment. He lay on his back some of the 
 time that day, and rested from his toil, I thought, 
 but the next morning revealed a sad state of af- 
 fairs. Poor Sandy had spun his little life away. 
 I brought him a bit of grass as refreshment, but 
 it was too late. He was quite stiff and dead when 
 I tried to turn him over. His dress covered 
 about two thirds of his 
 body, reaching well toward 
 his head on his back, but I 
 Sandy's unfinished n ever had the opportunity 
 "chore." o f see j n g what was his in- 
 
 tention about unmooring himself from the larger 
 stones, when his dressmaking was done. Perhaps 
 he had no such intention.
 
 CADDIS-WORMS. 
 
 139 
 
 My caddis cases varied in length from seven 
 sixteenths to three quarters of an inch, the latter 
 length being represented by but one, and due to 
 a projecting stone. One case that was a quarter 
 of an inch wide in the broadest part was weighted 
 by seven stones, while the longest case was a mass 
 of them. These cases were closed and contained 
 pupse. When the little sand-dressed larvae took 
 their walks up the sides of the bottle and on the 
 leaves, the creatures reminded ine of small hermit- 
 crabs peeping out of their shells. The Caddis- 
 worms seemed to have much the same lively, im- 
 pertinent natures as those crabs, too. 
 
 Once in April in the other brook, when a great 
 
 Papilio Turnus. 
 
 yellow Papilio Turnus butterfly was flying up 
 and around the water -side, there was a bigger
 
 140 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 Caddis-worin than Sandy had been. This larger 
 Caddis was suddenly torn from the home of his 
 infancy. No more should he wander through a 
 pool dragging sticks after him. His home, when 
 it was not a plate, was to be a bottle. 
 
 This Caddis-worm was about one inch and three 
 eighths long while in his case, because he had 
 hitched two small logs to himself and insisted 
 upon dragging them about with him. He was a 
 
 lively fellow. Perhaps 
 dragging weights is a 
 good thing for a Cad- 
 dis-worm's constitution. 
 
 The bigger Caddis^orm's Anyway he appeared so 
 House with " logs." healthy that I thought 
 
 he could endure making another covering for him- 
 self, and not die in the operation, either. 
 
 So I took his garment off from him and com- 
 manded him to go to work. I pounded up some 
 red brick and some white and blue buttons and 
 gave him the pieces, expecting him to make a pa- 
 triotic-looking garment. 
 
 It was about a quarter of two P. M. when this 
 worm began dress-making, and his house was fin- 
 ished by the next morning. It was evidently 
 hard work and he was inclined to keep pretty still 
 the next day, instead of trotting around the dish 
 as he had done before a new dress was demanded. 
 In making this dress he did indeed attach to him- 
 self a piece of red brick and one each of white
 
 CADDIS-WORMS. 141 
 
 and blue buttons, but his immediate covering was 
 mostly of sand, and on his bosom he had fastened 
 quite a sprig of green grass. I had laid that 
 grass before him, thinking that perhaps he might 
 like a bite during his exhausting labors. But E 
 Pluribus Unum had Hibernian tendencies, evi- 
 dently, and believed in the " wearin' of the green." 
 He reversed his position, however, so that he af- 
 terward wore the grass at the other end of his gar- 
 ment. 
 
 I had thought that he was going to prosper 
 finely after his dress-making, but two or three 
 days afterward I came to his bottle and found 
 him dead. The cause was overwork, undoubtedly, 
 and no matter how vigorous a Caddis-worm may 
 seem, I do not think that I shall ever impose such 
 labor on one again. Dress-making is evidently a 
 great exhaustion of the vital forces of a Caddis- 
 worm, and I felt guilty as I reflected that I had 
 murdered two of the inoffensive beings. 
 
 In some places in that brook there are so many 
 short, pebble-covered caddis cases on the stones 
 that the gazer is irresistibly reminded of the little 
 barnacles seen in such numbers on the rocks by 
 the sea. 
 
 I brought home one Caddis-worm that was cer- 
 tainly an ingenious fellow. I marvelled at his 
 style of architecture. It was somewhat the same 
 that children use in building " houses " of clothes- 
 pins. The little sticks stuck out in all directions,
 
 142 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 and the gifted inhabitant of the structure looked 
 very queer, hugging the stalks of 
 grass on which he was wont to hang 
 in the bottle. He must have had to 
 hold on tightly, with all those sticks 
 A triumph of weighing him down. Still, he some- 
 architecture, times hung perpendicularly suspended 
 by his legs. He could manage his house pretty 
 well, and often made it stand out in different di- 
 rections to suit him as he climbed. I should not 
 have had the heart to take to pieces his house. It 
 represented too much labor. 
 
 The little sand-covered Caddis-worms were quite 
 given to hanging from the grass. I remember 
 seeing one " shin down " a slender stem, until 
 losing hold, either intentionally or not, he floated 
 swiftly and gently down to the bottom. I do not 
 know how any naturalist could see one of these 
 little beings weaving so deftly its sandy dress, and 
 not recognize the existence of the Infinite Kindli- 
 ness that watches over even the meanest creatures 
 and provides them with means of protecting them- 
 selves against the little bruises that must be so 
 great to them. I do not know whether Job ever 
 saw a Caddis- worm, but I think that the man of 
 the land of Uz never gave his friends truer or 
 more beautiful advice than when he said to them : 
 " But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach 
 thee ; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell 
 thee :
 
 CADDIS-WORMS. 143 
 
 " Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee : 
 and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. 
 
 " Who knoweth not in all these that the hand 
 of the Lord hath wrought this ? " 
 
 Open some of the barnacle-like, stone-covered 
 little caddis cases that stud the stones and you 
 will find the pupae. One that I examined was 
 about a quarter of an inch long and showed very 
 plainly the black eyes of the coming Caddis-fly. 
 
 These flies should remain about two weeks in 
 a pupa state, I believe. Perhaps the water in a 
 glass bottle may not be fresh enough for the 
 pupae. At least I have never been able to keep 
 my caddis pupae in them until transformation. 
 The pupae seem to die, and a slight mould, such 
 as one observes gather on all dead insects under 
 water, forms on the caddis cases.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MY COKYDALUS. 
 
 " Mislike me not." 
 
 Merchant of Venice. 
 
 CORYDAL/S or Corydalus ? Authorities differ. 
 Let us " follow our leader," Packard, and say 
 Corydatas, despite the array of Tenney, Duncan, 
 and Wood in favor of " is." 
 
 Never mind how Corydalus spells his name. 
 He is an evil beast. 
 
 I well remember the day when my first and 
 only larva of Corydalus was found in the further 
 creek. I have cause to remember it, for did I 
 not find some caterpillars dwelling in closed net- 
 tle-leaves, and did I not sting myself most unmer- 
 cifully in taking possession of my findings and 
 pulling up part of the nettle to carry home ? 
 
 Did you ever prick your hands beautifully with 
 nettles, and then wash in a brook underneath 
 willows ? Ah, that is a sensation ! One hardly 
 wonders that in olden times people used nettles 
 for striking paralyzed limbs, hoping to bring feel- 
 ing back into them. What callous hands the old 
 Germans must have had in those days when they 
 made the cloth called " Nessel-tuch " f rom nettles.
 
 MY CORYDALUS. 145 
 
 What is the reason insects care so much for 
 prickly things? To be sure, it is very well for 
 them to do so, as the prickly plants are often 
 those that are called " weeds " by men, and that 
 are considered obnoxious. Surely it is better that 
 caterpillars should feed on them than on culti- 
 vated crops. Still, one cannot but reflect that 
 there are many weeds that do not have spines, 
 and one wishes that caterpillars would be satisfied 
 with them. But the bug-hunter must not capture 
 caterpillars unless he expects to get them their 
 usual food. 
 
 Yet, when one possesses a caterpillar that de- 
 sires to make a repast on spiny thistles, one is apt 
 to have a slight bond of sympathy with that his- 
 toric gentleman mentioned by Mother Goose : 
 
 " Simple Simon went to look 
 If plums grew on a thistle ; 
 He pricked his fingers very much, 
 Which made poor Simon whistle." 
 
 When a person is bringing up a number of cat- 
 erpillars that feed on nettles, with a family of 
 bugs that demand blackberry leaves, that person's 
 fingers are likely to pass into a state of prick al- 
 most unendurable. I know whereof I speak, for 
 have I not gone with blistered finger-ends to feed 
 my unsatiated caterpillars more nettles? It is 
 cheering, when in such a plight, to remember that 
 old writers used to recommend stinging with net- 
 tles " to let out melancholy."
 
 146 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 From this, the observant reader will perceive 
 that I have never yet learned to grasp nettles 
 firmly enough, a lesson inculcated in the old 
 rhyme written by Aaron Hill in 1750 on that win- 
 dow in Scotland. 
 
 " Tender-handed stroke a Nettle, 
 
 And it stings you for your pains. 
 Grasp it like a man of mettle, 
 
 And it soft as silk remains. 
 'T is the same with common natures, 
 
 Use 'em kindly, they rebel ; 
 But be rough as nutmeg-graters. 
 
 And the rogues obey you well." 
 
 That day I overheard a cry from my compan- 
 ion and rushed to the rescue. There in the shal- 
 low stream, doing his very best to get away, was 
 a full-grown larva of Corydalus. He was popped 
 into the bottle without ceremony and brought 
 home. In appearance Corydalus was no beauty. 
 I presume he would have frightened some people 
 out of their wits. But I was overjoyed to see 
 him, for he was the only one of his kind I had 
 ever beheld outside of a book. 
 
 He was about two inches long, had a black 
 head with nippers, six legs in front, and eight 
 respiratory filaments standing out from either side 
 of his body and making themselves so conspicu- 
 ous that an impertinent little Caddis-worm that 
 wore a dress of sand caught hold of one of them. 
 I presume Caddis pinched, for Corydalus turned 
 around on him with the same quick motion that
 
 MY CORY DAL US. 
 
 147 
 
 you see in a cat or dog suddenly bitten by a flea. 
 Caddis held on impudently till Corydalus had 
 several times turned on 
 him in wrath. Then I 
 interfered, and Cory- 
 dalus took Caddis in 
 his nippers, but the 
 pinching rascal retreat- 
 ed into his case and was 
 safe from well-deserved 
 vengeance. 
 
 Corydalus was 
 " pudgicky." He took 
 it as an insult if I man- 
 aged to touch him, and 
 he climbed recklessly 
 around, disdaining the 
 gift I made him of an 
 earth-worm. Corydalus 
 despised me : nay more, 
 he hated me. He would 
 have none of my favors. 
 Was I not his jailer ? 
 
 I gave him a little 
 mortar for a pond and set it inside a flower-pot of 
 soft earth, so that he might climb out of the water 
 if he so desired, for I thought from his size he 
 must be near the time of his transformation. 
 
 The pot was too full of earth, and Corydalus in 
 his customary defiant way plunged headlong off 
 
 Larva of Horned Corydalus.
 
 148 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 into the air and was hurled down the precipice to 
 the table. Such adventures merely agreed with 
 Corydalus' temperament. I fancy that he passed 
 the whole of his life in that sort of defiant humor 
 that sometimes makes a foolish human being re- 
 ject the comfort of his fireside and rush out into 
 the storm, rejoicing in whirlwinds and pouring 
 rain, merely because they furnish something to 
 combat, and the very force exerted in battling 
 with the elements serves to quiet the tempest 
 within the one who uses the force. 
 
 I took out a portion of the earth and lowered 
 the mortar, replanting the grass around it. Cory- 
 dalus speedily came out, and, after some hesita- 
 tion and going back to the water, established 
 himself in the darkness and dirt under his lake. 
 He was evidently no longer to inhabit the water, 
 and the poor earth-worm might rejoice, for Cory- 
 dalus would never eat him. 
 
 I looked in on Corydalus several times. The 
 last time he was so indignant that he plunged 
 deeper into the earth and I let it fall in so that he 
 was buried from sight in the flower-pot. I care- 
 fully kept the hole closed in the bottom of the 
 pot, however, for I did not want him to escape 
 that way. He burrowed under the earth, as Rabbi 
 Simeon declared the just do. That truthful rabbi 
 asserted that for those righteous persons who were 
 buried outside the land of Canaan there should 
 be caverns made beneath the earth, by which the
 
 MY COR YD AL US. 149 
 
 just might work their way till they came within 
 the sacred limits of the land of Israel. 
 
 Truly a wonderful amount of burrowing goes 
 on underneath our feet, but the burrowers are 
 far from being those persons of whom the rabbi 
 dreamed. Neither should I apply the epithet 
 " just " to Corydalus. His appearance was against 
 him. 
 
 The rabbins say that the names of the angels 
 were first learned by the Jews during their captiv- 
 ity. But Corydalus, during his, had no desire to 
 learn the name of even the person who attended 
 him. Perhaps he did not look upon me as an 
 angel. Very likely he did not. And he would 
 not have flattered me by insinuating that I was 
 one, if he did not think so. He was not that 
 kind of a person. Still I was happy to have 
 found him. It is not on every journey to that 
 far-away brook that one can find such a treasure. 
 Do not I remember walking there one morning 
 and being so frightened by a dog and a cow that 
 I fled homeward bearing with me but a few mis- 
 erable caterpillars and a larvel Frog - hopper ? 
 How much happier was the journey during which 
 Corydalus was found. 
 
 In the other brook one May morning I found 
 floating dead an enormous Mole-cricket, one of 
 the creatures called by the French "Courtilieres," 
 from the old French word courtille, " garden." I 
 once kept a Mole-cricket in a bottle for quite a
 
 150 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 time. He used to ascend to the top of his hole 
 occasionally in the twilight, but he was a timid 
 young fellow, and never became acquainted with 
 me. 
 
 It is hard to wait for such a creature as Cory- 
 dalus. He disappears in the earth, it falls over 
 his much-branched body, and you see him no 
 more. Days go by, fifteen, sixteen, twenty of 
 them. You grow nervous. You wonder what he 
 is doing in the lower regions of that flower-pot. 
 You feel possessed to dig down and see him. 
 You know exactly how the little boy feels when 
 he has planted his first seed and longs to dig it 
 up and see if it has begun to grow. You hunt 
 up Corydalus in books, and you find Hagen say- 
 ing : " The reason that the larva of Corydalus has 
 both branchiae and spiracles is, that it lives, like 
 SialiS) some weeks out of the water before its 
 transformation." 
 
 You heave a sigh and shut the book. The 
 gloomy thought oppresses you that perhaps Cory- 
 dalus has not transformed into anything. Per- 
 haps he looks just as he did when he last saw the 
 light. It is very discouraging, but you remember 
 what damage was done to the Water-tiger larva 
 by digging down to see him, and yoii bide your 
 time, or Corydalus' time, rather. You console 
 yourself by reflecting that at least Corydalus did 
 not require you to dig his hole for him. A box- 
 ful of these creatures would be much like that
 
 MY COR YD AL US. 
 
 151 
 
 monastery of the Catacombs on the Dnieper 
 where some of the ascetics are said to have 
 
 Horned Corydalus. 
 
 bricked themselves up alive in the cells winch 
 were to become their sepulchres. But Corydalus
 
 152 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 is wiser than the saints. He intends to come out 
 some day while he is yet alive. 
 
 On the twenty-second day after Corydalus was 
 found I looked into the flower-pot and was as- 
 tonished to perceive him sitting on top of the 
 earth. But, alas ! how changed he was in ap- 
 pearance. His body had shortened and he was 
 altogether discouraged-looking. All his fire and 
 wrath had left him. I poked him, but he did 
 not resist. Poor Corydalus ! His days were evi- 
 dently numbered. There was no prospect of his 
 ever coming out as a winged creature with a 
 couple of savage-looking mandibles in front. He 
 could not even become a pupa. 
 
 He evidently came up on top of the earth to 
 die. He did die, and as he lay on the bottom of 
 the jelly-glass in which I placed him, he had con- 
 tracted so much that he looked like a dead larva 
 of one of the Dytiscidce. He was hardly an inch 
 long and his side-appendages did not show much 
 for they were drawn up against his body, and in 
 this respect the resemblance was more perfect. 
 
 I kept him in the glass a number of days to 
 see if any internal parasite that might have been 
 preying on him would come forth. The wicked 
 Ichneumon-flies are said to prey even on Caddis- 
 worms, and I do not know why Corydalus might 
 not have been attacked some time when he chose 
 to walk out of the water. But no parasite ap- 
 peared, and I was somewhat at a loss to account 
 for his decease.
 
 MY CORYDALUS, 
 
 153 
 
 Still, it must require much strength to pass 
 through the transformation-period, and perhaps 
 Corydalus was not so strong and 
 healthy as he appeared when I 
 brought him from the brook. 
 
 I think that if Corydalus could 
 have chosen his epitaph it would 
 have been that inscribed over the 
 grand master of Alcantara, " Here 
 lies one who never knew fear." 
 
 And though Charles V., when 
 he knew of the epitaph, remarked 
 to one of his courtiers that " the 
 good knight could never have tried 
 to snuff a candle with his fingers," 
 yet I hope that no aspersions will 
 be cast on Corydalus by any one Pu P a of 
 
 J J J cornutus. 
 
 who may chance to hear of this 
 second use of the epitaph. For although Cory- 
 dalus may sometimes have had some fear of some- 
 thing, yet he never betrayed such emotion to me 
 during my short acquaintance with him. And if, 
 in leaving him, I should still reiterate my state- 
 ment that he is an evil beast, yet, in doing so, 
 I would follow the advice given by Silvius to 
 Phrebe, 
 
 " Say that you love me not, but say not so 
 In bitterness."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE. 
 
 " And every cat and dog 1 , 
 And little mouse, every unworthy thing, 
 
 may look on her." 
 
 Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 LET me warn the guileless person who has never 
 sought for water-livers. Unless you mean to be 
 a " bug-hunter " all your days, never, never take a 
 dredger in your hand and go forth to dredge. For 
 the one who does that becomes fascinated. There 
 will always be some pool unexplored, some still 
 pond that hides : who knows what ? in its 
 depths. How can one stop when the next lift of 
 the dredger may bring to light some insect-form 
 that one has never seen, but has read of, or found 
 pictured in books ? The mysterious is always 
 fascinating, and an unexplored pond is felicity 
 indeed to an entranced dredger. Occasionally 
 one starts up and says, as the last beetle drops 
 into the bottle, " Oh, I must be going home," and 
 then the baleful glitter of a still pool under a 
 willow-tree meets the eye, and one's resolution is 
 forgotten. If Narcissus had known what crea- 
 tures infinitely more interesting than himself 
 dwelt below the flood, he might not have wasted 
 so much time gazing at his own reflection.
 
 COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE. 155 
 
 Still, there are drawbacks to one's felicity. I 
 passed by a small house not long ago. A little 
 scrap of a boy stood at the back gate, and, as I 
 vanished down the road, these words were wafted 
 to mine ears, " There 's the lady that catches 
 fish." 
 
 I am consoled, however, by the appellation, 
 " lady." Let all fish-women be hereafter known 
 as " fish-ladies." To such a pass has come our 
 English tongue. 
 
 Let us turn our attention to the brook. But 
 
 " Missis," says a baby voice, and a little boy 
 with a blue apron on looks through the fence. 
 
 " What is it ? " I answer, knowing well what 
 is coming. 
 
 " What you catching ? " 
 
 And, with a patience born of long endurance, 
 I answer, " Water-beetles." 
 
 " Fish for sale. Three for a nickel," remarks 
 a youngster to his friend, as he perceives me 
 passing the oak-tree he is trying to climb. 
 
 " Missis, here 's a bug," shouts a deceptive 
 youth from the shade of a locust-tree. 
 
 But I am not to be deceived into going after 
 that mythical " bug," for I know the " ways that 
 are dark and tricks that are vain " of California 
 boys, and the unbelieving smile with which I look 
 at the group convinces that youth that the bril- 
 liant joke is fully understood by " missis." 
 
 " Them 's my weeds," squealed a little skip-
 
 156 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 ping girl in the distance, as she once saw me turn 
 aside from the beaten path to look at some weeds 
 by the* road where I thought caterpillars might 
 possibly be hiding. 
 
 She meant it in fun, just to amuse her compan- 
 ions, for the weeds were not hers, by any means. 
 And the children really had kindly hearts toward 
 the bug-catcher, for it was either the claimer of the 
 weeds or one of her companions who ran across 
 the road, a few days later, as she saw me going 
 by, and cried, " Missis, if I get tins of the red 
 snakes, do you like them ? " 
 
 On inquiry I thought from her description of 
 " these red snakes that come out of the ground " 
 that they were simply earth - worms, so I was 
 doubtful about accepting the offer ; but she went 
 on, "I had two tins of bugs saved up for you a 
 while ago, but you never came by, and so I threw 
 them away." 
 
 And this was the little girl that I thought 
 sneered at bug-catching ! Bless her kindly little 
 heart ! 
 
 Most children's talk about bugs comes from 
 curiosity or a love of fun, while some remarks 
 made by older people seem to me to arise from 
 stupidity. 
 
 I remember once having visited a brook. It 
 was neither the " other brook " nor this one, but 
 a third, a number of miles from here. I had 
 never before been there collecting, and I found
 
 COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE. 157 
 
 beside the stream a kind of plant with a number 
 of caterpillars feeding on it. Both caterpillars 
 and plant were alike unknown to me, so I caught 
 some of the almost full-grown worms, and pulled 
 up some branches of the plants to take home 
 with me for food for my captives. 
 
 I concealed the caterpillars in a box, but the 
 long branches of the plant were not so easily 
 hidden. However, the plant was a very common- 
 place-looking one, there being nothing about it 
 to excite any one's curiosity. But it is ever my 
 doom to fall into the hands of the inquisitive. 
 I suppose that bug-hunters generally meet such 
 questioners, but I hardly expected to be accosted 
 on a city street beside a railroad track. 
 
 I had taken the dummy and horse-car back to 
 the city, and I stood near the station waiting for 
 my train, when I was approached by a woman 
 whom I am not aware of ever having seen be- 
 fore, and whom I hope never to meet again. 
 
 "What is that you have there?" asked she, 
 looking at my branches. 
 
 " I don't know what it is. Some kind of weed," 
 I answered. 
 
 " You ought to know what you 're getting," 
 responded the woman, calmly picking a good- 
 sized leaf from my bundle, and holding the crum- 
 pled-up green thing to her nose. 
 
 " It is n't anything, is it ? " she went on. 
 
 " Why, I suppose it is something''' I answered, 
 " but I don't know the name."
 
 158 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 The woman looked at me. 
 
 " Oh, you just picked it to have something 
 green in your hand," she said. 
 
 And, perceiving that I had an inquisitive idiot 
 to deal with, I made no answer. But I remarked 
 inwardly afterwards that I had no idea of finding 
 anything quite so green as that woman. 
 
 Truly, as the Havamal of the Elder Edda 
 saith, 
 
 ' ' A better burden 
 No man bears on the way 
 Than much good sense." 
 
 One September day I came to this brook dredg- 
 ing as usual, and found a fat woman and three in- 
 fants. They were informed that I was catching 
 water-beetles, since they labored under the sur- 
 prising delusion that it was fish I longed for. 
 
 " Water-beetles," said the fat woman with an 
 air of wisdom ; " they 're the things that they 
 put on a hook to catch fish with." 
 
 No doubt she thought that my fishing was to 
 come. I was merely securing bait. I have be- 
 come certain that there is one bit of wisdom that 
 all possess. There is no one who is not acquainted 
 with it. It is this : Fish live in brooks. 
 
 The general impression that the actions of vis- 
 itors give to a bug-hunter when beside the brook 
 is that they are inwardly repeating to themselves 
 the sentence addressed by Jaques to Orlando, " I 
 was seeking for a fool when I found you."
 
 COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE. 159 
 
 And the bug-hunter wishes that it were but 
 proper to respond in the words of Orlando, " He 
 is drowned in the brook: look but in and you 
 .shall see him." 
 
 Still, I do not know whether the curious gazer 
 would then take the hint and have sense enough 
 to understand the bug-hunter's meaning and to 
 respond as Jaques, " There shall I see mine own 
 figure." 
 
 Perhaps, if a bug-hunter could get enough 
 courage, it might be better to say boldly with 
 Jaques, " I thank you for your company, but I 
 had as lief been myself alone." 
 
 Once in a while here one hears a soft sound on 
 the bank above, and, turning, sees a red cow peer- 
 ing down among the grass as if to mildly inquire 
 what is going on. But the cow never makes any 
 critical remarks. That is the best of her. She 
 takes it for granted that the rest of the world are 
 employed in sensible business like herself. She 
 and her kin, with that white goat that occasionally 
 looms between me and the sky, appearing, as I 
 look up this little precipice, like a moving day- 
 constellation, a second Capricornus, are almost 
 the only right-minded people that I have ever met 
 when dredging. The goat is fascinating. Did I 
 not in my youth have so violent an admiration 
 for that animal that a certain article of apparel 
 was commonly designated in our house by the 
 humiliating title of " the goat-dress," inasmuch as
 
 160 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 I was expected to don that costume every time 1 
 went out to play with Billy? Said Billy's per- 
 fume being so strong as to infect any article of 
 clothing worn near him. 
 
 What mattered it if playful Guillermo did 
 knock me down and with his horns nearly punch 
 the breath out of me ? Did I not take revenge 
 on him by drawing his picture one day when he 
 stood cowed beneath a pelting rain, body drawn 
 together, and whole aspect denoting misery ? And 
 has not that picture of his disgrace survived until 
 this day ? Happy are my memories of that other 
 little goat that learned to play " teeter " with me. 
 
 There must be to many right-thinking children 
 one mystery about a goat. It is this. How can 
 he keep his beard looking so smooth, without any 
 comb? Whereas the child who plays with him 
 comes in from the fray with tangled locks a'flying. 
 
 The ancient Celts and Cymry had their expla- 
 nation ready. If there is anything that modern 
 civilization cannot answer, all one has to do is to 
 turn to the simple folk of old, and they are almost 
 certain to have a satisfactory explanation ready. 
 It was the saying of those ancient people that, 
 every Friday night, the fairies made the round 
 and combed the goats' beards to make them decent 
 for Sunday. Truly the Ideine volk must have a 
 hard time of it if they keep up that custom still. 
 They must be heartily glad when Saturday morn- 
 ing dawns and the job is over.
 
 COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE. 161 
 
 Poor things, they have had a hard time ever 
 since the first. For the Sclavonic nations say 
 that the origin of elves was sorrowful enough. 
 The first man, they say, had thirty sons and thirty 
 daughters, but, being ashamed of the number of 
 girls, he answered, when asked the number of his 
 children, " Thirty boys and twenty-seven girls." 
 
 And, in punishment for his falsehood, three of 
 the most beautiful of the girls were taken from 
 him and changed into elves. Good creatures they 
 were, and they must retain much patience even 
 until now, if during all these years they have 
 been barbers to the goats. What an unhappy 
 trade is that ! But perhaps it belongs to the 
 Celtic fairies only. 
 
 But there are a few other people who greet 
 dredgers with silent respect. There are some in- 
 dustrious hens who visit here at times. They be- 
 lieve with all their hearts in dredging, for they 
 get many a meal among these water-weeds. 
 
 I met a rooster here, too, one afternoon. He 
 was quite tall ; at least his shape gave one that 
 impression, and in this respect he reminded me of 
 Mahomet's cock. For believers in the Prophet 
 will remember that he was said to have found in 
 the first heaven a cock of so great size that its 
 crest touched the second heaven, and it is the 
 crowing of this creature that awakes all the ani- 
 jnal creation on earth except man. Therefore say 
 the Moslem wise men, " Allah lends a willing ear
 
 162 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 to him who reads the Koran, to him who prays 
 for pardon, and to the cock whose chant is divine 
 melody." So near together are the Koran and 
 this brook. Art and this brook's visitors might 
 claim some kin, too, for would not these hens be 
 interested in knowing that Gaddo Gaddi at Flor- 
 ence employed himself in making small pictures 
 in mosaic of egg-shells, " finished with incredible 
 industry and patience " ? 
 
 If men were not so stupidly deaf as not to 
 hear the crowing of Mahomet's cock, perhaps the 
 officer called the " King's Cock-Crower " would 
 never have .existed, and so one prince of the 
 House of Hanover would have escaped being star- 
 tled. For it is written that formerly during Lent 
 the King's Cock-Crower crowed the hour every 
 night within the confines of the palace, and so, on 
 the first Ash Wednesday after the new House 
 came to the throne, the Prince of Wales, after- 
 ward George II., was astonished, before his worthy 
 chaplain had said grace at supper, by an officer 
 suddenly entering and crowing the words " Past 
 ten o'clock." 
 
 And Prince George in his wrath, not under- 
 standing English, concluded that he was being 
 insulted and rose to avenge the wrongs of the 
 House of Brunswick, and had it not been for 
 humble explanations, he would probably have fin- 
 ished the career of the man who tried to be a cock. 
 
 I think the rooster at the brook would enjoy
 
 COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE. 163 
 
 that story. I wish I could tell it to him. He ad- 
 dressed a confidential communication to me when 
 I met him. It was not a crow, but a sort of re- 
 mark, and I much wished to understand it. 
 
 The red cow and her neighboring relatives are 
 helpers of beetles, did they but know it, for in 
 their droppings numerous black scavenger-beetles 
 find refuge, and, on that road yonder, underneath 
 such spots, perhaps one may find in early spring 
 the beautifully marked dark-brown-and-white lar- 
 vse of those nimble ground-beetles known as the 
 Caralndce. One must seize such larvae quickly, or 
 they will retreat into their holes. Thirteen divi- 
 sions mark the bodies of these larvae, and to carry 
 so many parts there are six legs and a sort of 
 stumpy, white false leg as a prop at the end of 
 the abdomen. The head looks something like 
 that of the larva of the Water-tiger, being armed 
 with mandibles, while the postei'ior end of the 
 body finishes with two long hooks. Very eager 
 are these larvae, when caught, to get away and 
 make for. themselves new holes in some clod of 
 earth. 
 
 Very few beetles or beetle-larvae like to be han- 
 dled, and for that reason I could never more than 
 half believe that tale told of the artist, Buonamico 
 Buffalmacco. I cannot see how he could find 
 beetles that would submit to being treated in the 
 way the tale says his did. He must have been a 
 boy very patient in doing mischief.
 
 164 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 For the story goes that he, being when a lad 
 compelled by his master, Andrea Tafi, to rise and 
 paint in the night, devised a scheme to terrify Tafi 
 into allowing him to sleep till morning. Buffal- 
 macco obtained a number of beetles, and fastened 
 little tapers to their backs. During the night he 
 lighted the tapers and sent the beetles through a 
 hole into his master's room. 
 
 Tafi awoke, and saw here and there on wall 
 and floor moving specks of fire gleaming in 
 the dark. His superstitious mind was alarmed. 
 Surely these were nothing less than demons. 
 Poor Tafi ! He dared not rise to labor, and in 
 the morning the bad boy Buffalmacco duly con- 
 firmed him in his belief that demons had visited 
 the room, averring that those individuals hated 
 painters. 
 
 " For," said this evil-minded youth, " besides 
 that we always make them most hideous, we think 
 of nothing but painting saints, both men and 
 women, on walls and pictures; which is much 
 worse, since we thereby render men better and 
 more devout, to the great despite of the demons ; 
 and for all this the devils being angry with us, 
 and having more power by night than by day, 
 they play these tricks with us." 
 
 And so credulous was Tafi that he ceased to 
 rise at night to paint, or to require Buffalmacco to 
 do so. Moreover, the priest was as superstitious 
 as Tafi, and confirmed the notion, and, as every
 
 COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE. 165 
 
 time that the master somewhat recovered from his 
 fright and recommenced painting and making 
 Buffalmacco work at night, he was sure to be pun- 
 ished by seeing the little wandering lights, the 
 priest earnestly advised him to give up the prac- 
 tice. The story became known, and Tan and 
 the other painters dared not for a long time work 
 at night. 
 
 But I should like to see the company of beetles 
 that would allow me to fasten lighted or unlighted 
 tapers to their backs. 
 
 Even the geese genus Anser, not Homo 
 that one meets around this brook are prone to 
 look upon me with suspicion. They puff out their 
 fatness and gaze at myself and dredger with an 
 air of superiority that is quite crushing. Evi- 
 dently, as the Yakimas of Washington Territory 
 affirm, geese were once human beings. Else 
 when did they learn that bug-hunting is foolish- 
 ness ? They seem to be of that opinion now. It 
 was the son of the Sun, so say the Indians, who 
 caused a number of persons to swim through a 
 lake of magic oil that turned them all to animals. 
 But these animals were fat only where they had 
 touched the oil. The person who became the bear 
 dived, and so that animal is fat all over. But the 
 one who became the goose swam on the surface, 
 and that is the reason why geese are fat only to 
 the water-line. No, the backs of the geese will 
 never be very fat, and their scornful glances per-
 
 166 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 suade me that this Indian story is true. Was it 
 not Charles V. who was wont to say of our detested 
 language that one should " use English in speak- 
 ing to geese " ? " en ingles a los gansos." But 
 what if " los gansos " will not listen ? 
 
 But the scorn of geese has not much effect on 
 a wielder of the dredger. 
 
 Down in that grass is hidden a white cat. 
 She is out entomologizing, too, doubtless, and 
 might impart some valuable ideas to a searcher 
 after insects, if she would. But cats are ever 
 averse to giving other people light. The feline 
 race are as stubborn now as they were in the days 
 when poor Tasso, lacking a candle, begged his cat 
 that she would lend him the light of her eyes at 
 night that he might see to write his verses. 
 
 " Non avendo candele per iscrivere i saoi versi ! " Tasso. 
 
 Freya, the old German divinity of beauty, was 
 said to be drawn in her car by cats. I am afraid 
 that the lady did not travel very fast. Perhaps 
 she preferred a slow gait and chose her coursers 
 in order that people might have time to observe 
 the loveliness of her countenance as she passed. 
 
 But woe to the cats when the belief in fair Freya
 
 COMPANIONS OF Mt SOLITUDE. 167 
 
 vanished ! For then, of course, people went to 
 the other extreme, and, in contempt of Freya and 
 her coursers, cats with bladders tied to their feet 
 were cruelly thrown from the church-tower at 
 Ypres, as a sign that the people had done with 
 heathen beliefs. Perhaps they had, but that was 
 a strange proof of orthodoxy. I doubt not the 
 pussies would have been better satisfied with the 
 religious Tightness of their owners if neither cat- 
 reverence nor cat-contempt had prevailed. 
 
 Still I do not know that the custom of Ypres 
 was any more cruel than the ancient Scottish 
 method of treating cats. For, anciently, when 
 some one of the tartan-wearers wanted to know 
 something of the future, he would catch a live cat 
 and hang it up before the fire, and leave it there 
 until by its cries it had attracted other cats to the 
 place. Then the worthy Highlander would ask 
 the questions he wished to have answered, and 
 would interpret the cat-cries so as to make re- 
 plies in the Gaelic tongue. And then, when the 
 Highlander was fully satisfied, he had mercy on 
 the singed cat and set it free. 
 
 Even Paris was not kind to cats, for, on the eve 
 of St. John, the mayor of the city used to put 
 about a dozen cats into a large basket, and then, 
 kind man, proceed to throw the unlucky beings 
 into the bonfires that were built on that festival. 
 
 All this would be horrible news to that cat 
 down in the grass. I am afraid she would faint
 
 168 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 if I told it to her. One must be careful about 
 telling evil tidings too suddenly. 
 
 That cat would feel much more flattered to 
 hear of the " Cat's Fugue " that Dominico Scar- 
 latti made from those five notes that his cat struck 
 when she jumped on the piano keys. If this cat 
 could understand, what an interesting tale could 
 one tell her of that painter of Switzerland, Gott- 
 fried Mind, who was called the " Raphael of 
 Cats " because he made so many pictures of the 
 feline beauties. And how sincerely would this cat 
 sympathize with Gottfried's grief, when, on ac- 
 count of some signs of madness that had shown 
 themselves in the cats of Berne, the magistrates 
 of the town gave orders that the cats should be 
 killed ! Eight hundred cats are said to have per- 
 ished in that fearful massacre. Imagine what 
 Gottfried's feelings must have been ! How ter- 
 ribly lacerated ! Indeed it is said that although 
 he managed to save his own pet cat Minette from 
 this St. Bartholomew of the pussies, yet he never 
 afterward seemed to be wholly comforted. 
 
 But, the killing-time being over, he set about 
 painting pictures of more cats and kittens than 
 ever, and the next winter he went into the busi- 
 ness of cutting chestnuts into the shape of his 
 adored pets. And so " cute " were his chestnut- 
 cats that people bought them as fast as he could 
 make them. I fear there will never arise another 
 " Raphael of Cats."
 
 COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE. 169 
 
 " II cane e fedele si, ma il gattp e traditore." 
 Dogs are faithful, cats are traitors, is the Italian 
 sentiment. But I had rather meet a cat than a 
 dog when I am out after " bugs." There is a dog 
 that lives across the creek. He is a despicable 
 person with a mighty voice, and his sole desire is 
 to break loose and rush over and bite me when- 
 ever he sees me looking among the branches of 
 that weeping willow. He takes it for granted 
 that I am in bad business, and I naturally feel 
 aggrieved. Perhaps he is color-blind, and mis- 
 takes my black dress for the blue blouse of a 
 Chinese rag-picker, for I have seen one of those 
 persons here searching this little ravine for addi- 
 tions to his baskets. 
 
 No cat ever has spoken so impudently to me 
 when on these entomologizing excursions as that 
 dog has. He is a villain, and a standing argu- 
 ment to me that the Ettrick Shepherd was entirely 
 wrong when he said, " I canna but believe that 
 dowgs hae sowls." 
 
 As a general thing, however, the companion- 
 ship of " critters " is consoling. Go out some day 
 when you are disgusted with your neighbors, 
 when the inquisitiveness and idiocy of the world 
 of human beings has been particularly galling. 
 Go and sit down on the green grass by a cow for 
 a while. Listen to her speech, look into her eyes, 
 observe the soothing regularity of her chewing. 
 See with what confiding trust the goat approaches
 
 170 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 you. Pat him on the head and break branches 
 of the oak for him, and observe with what bliss 
 you have filled his soul. And, after an hour of 
 such treatment, see if the " blues " have not de- 
 parted. Whithei" ? Upward, perhaps, to form 
 part of the sky. Of course there may be draw- 
 backs to this treatment. The grass may be damp, 
 and you may get rheumatism, but that is your own 
 fault. The axiom I set out to state is that in 
 cases of " nerves," the companionship of animals 
 is a sort of anodyne. 
 
 They look up at you with a sort of humbleness 
 or audacity as suits their respective personalities. 
 And when two black kids dance for you the 
 cachucha, or whatever else you may call that ex- 
 traordinarily graceful exercise that young goats 
 caper through, you feel mightily pleased. Thor 
 himself, you reflect, was drawn in a chariot by 
 two goats, Tanngnjost, the " teeth-gnasher," and 
 Tanngrisner, "fire-flashing teeth." You hardly 
 attempt to pronounce the names of those animals, 
 even to yourself, but you wonder if in that Scan- 
 dinavian myth there does not lurk the recogni- 
 tion of the fact that the grandest personages may 
 find comfort in the society of animals. For that 
 matter, lower creatures than animals can bring 
 consoling diversion to the mind, for reptiles and 
 insects have powers of amusing unsuspected by 
 those who have never watched them.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 
 
 " Come hither, boy." 
 
 Titus Andronicus. 
 
 ON the higher ground and the hills near this 
 brook dwell other creatures. In that garden 
 yonder I have often seen the great, yellow, slimy 
 slug, Ariolimax, so frequently found in damp 
 spots along the Pacific coast. I am afraid I 
 stocked that garden with those slugs. Being up 
 among the foot-hills north of here I found several 
 of the slugs, one measuring about four and three, 
 eighths inches long. Six or seven inches is a 
 length attained by these creatures sometimes. I 
 captured a big one and took it away with me. 
 
 Little did the people in a certain restaurant 
 that evening think that a prim and proper person 
 sitting at one of the tables, calmly partaking of 
 her supper, had carefully tied up a huge slug 
 from the gaze of the world and now had the crea- 
 ture waiting beside her. But it was even so. I 
 brought the slug home. I think that was about 
 two years ago, and now in the twilight of April 
 evenings, or even occasionally in a September 
 rain, various Ariolimaxes drag their bulk into
 
 172 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 sight upon the walk. One evening a little girl 
 called my attention to a slug that was about five 
 inches long, an inch and a half high, and about as 
 wide. The slug looked a good deal like a slimy, 
 glistening sweet potato. Even the infants among 
 these slugs are of greater size than ordinary. I 
 frequently see partially grown slugs that measure 
 perhaps three inches long, but are only about 
 half an inch wide. 
 
 Ariolimax has a dainty taste. Blue violets are 
 delightful articles of food to these slugs. I re- 
 member how horrified two ladies were to meet a 
 moderate-sized Ariolimax among the leaves of the 
 violets they were picking. The slime left by such 
 large slugs is very tenacious. Get some of it on 
 your hand and it is a difficult job to wash the 
 substance off. Step in it, and you will wish you 
 had n't. The promenades that the Ariolimax 
 family insist on taking toward dark become a 
 serious source of annoyance and worry to one 
 who does not wish to set his foot on one of these 
 huge creatures. I should as soon think of crush- 
 ing a baby. 
 
 I once found one of these huge slugs inside of 
 General Fremont. For the benefit of the too 
 startled reader I would hasten to explain that the 
 General mentioned is a huge redwood, one of the 
 " Big Trees " near Santa Cruz. Damp woods and 
 the vicinity of springs delight Ariolimax and in 
 such places this creature may hide during the dry 
 summers.
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 173 
 
 What varied tastes there are among these 
 higher ground creatures ! Some of them are the 
 opposite of Ariolimax in their likings. 
 
 On dusty paths over these hills in August, you 
 will sometimes see, by looking sharply, a little 
 creature skipping along by your feet. If you are 
 not 011 the alert you may mistake him for a bit of 
 dry stick or straw blown by some minute breeze. 
 Catch him if you can and put him under a micro- 
 scope. He is one of the Thysanura, or Spring- 
 tails, a narrow creature, with long antennae in 
 front, six legs in the mid- 
 dle, and some bristles be- 
 hind. One that I caught 
 could jump in a very lively 
 manner. He seemed to 
 be covered with butterfly- 
 like gray scales that came 
 off from the poor fellow 
 when I turned him over 
 on his back or in other 
 positions to see him 
 plainly. He had, I think, 
 six-jointed antenna?, and 
 three anal bristles. 
 
 Wingless creatures are 
 
 O 
 
 the Thysanura, but what 
 
 does it matter ? Perhaps One of the Thysanura. 
 
 hopping is just as much 
 
 fun as flying to one who is used to the former 
 
 method of progression.
 
 174 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 There flies a bee. Job was responsible for the 
 existence of bees, I believe, according to the 
 rabbins. They anciently told a grisly tale that 
 before the days of Job there were neither silk- 
 worms nor honey - bees upon the earth. But, 
 after that righteous man's great affliction and his 
 restoration to prosperity, the worms that had de- 
 voured the body of Job were turned into silk- 
 worms, and the flies that had tormented him were 
 changed into honey-bees. 
 
 Mahomet said that bees should be admitted 
 into Paradise, although I fear the gentleman was 
 about as far wrong in his assertion as the rabbins 
 were in theirs. It is at least a queer thing that 
 there should have once been thought to be so in- 
 timate a relation between bees and souls. I be- 
 lieve it is said that in some parts of England bees 
 are not allowed to leave their hives on Friday, on 
 account of the religious scruples of their owners. 
 And the French peasant women go on the Day of 
 Purification to read the Gospel to the bees. How 
 very wipked must wild bees that have no reli- 
 gious privileges appear to such people. 
 
 These Hydrometridce are very numerous here. 
 You will see different sizes of them. In the day- 
 time, I mean. The Skaters go to bed at night, 
 like other respectable citizens. 
 
 I discovered this fact by keeping some of these 
 creatures in a miniature pond. At night they 
 went to bed on the sides of the lake, on the earth
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 175 
 
 above the water. Neither were they dissipated 
 creatures, for I found one of the Skaters going 
 to bed as early as a -quarter before six on a June 
 evening before it was dark. 
 
 They did not like to get up very early in the 
 morning. I have gone to the miniature lake at 
 half-past six in the morning, but the folks were 
 not up. By looking sharply, I could see one 
 hanging above the water, his hind legs flopping 
 helplessly down below him. In a bigger hole 
 were one or two others, as could be seen by the 
 number of legs protruding from the cranny. 
 
 But the folks were not at all disturbed by my 
 visit to their chamber. Perhaps they were dream- 
 ing. Did they dream of the brook where they 
 once skated as free bugs, or did they dream of a 
 time when their jailer would be able to catch 
 more palatable flies for them than those were that 
 were thrown in yesterday? Again, at half -past 
 seven, I looked in upon them, but the sluggards 
 were still abed. Water - skaters are evidently 
 lazy. 
 
 And I do not think that they have as quick 
 eyes as one might imagine them to possess. For, 
 in idle moments, when I have stood beside some 
 little pool on which the Water-skaters were numer- 
 ous, after the first shock of my presence was over 
 and the creatures had forgotten me, I have amused 
 myself with casting broken heads of grasses into 
 the water, as near the creatures as I could, to see
 
 176 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 if they would mistake them for moths or other 
 living morsels falling within reach. And, al- 
 though many times my grasses were unnoticed, 
 yet, at other times, one of the Skaters would turn 
 hastily toward the grass, or steer himself to it, to 
 make sure it were something edible. 
 
 Perhaps, however, such a Skater may have 
 hoped to find some bug clinging to the grass, but 
 the action of the moment seemed to indicate that 
 the Skater had been deceived. Yet the Skaters 
 are very quick to see a person approach the pool, 
 and after sitting on the bank awhile one has only 
 to stand up to send the whole company of Skaters 
 fleeing away over the water. 
 
 A boy once told me that these creatures have 
 fights, one that has something to eat being chased 
 around by several others. I do not know whether 
 the Water-skaters ever attempt to capture the 
 Whirligig beetles. I have seen a Whirligig pass 
 directly before a middle-sized Skater, and yet the 
 latter did not seem to care for him. Water-skat- 
 ers and Whirligigs can be seen in joint possession 
 of the surface of some small pond. Perhaps the 
 Whirligig is too hard a morsel for the Skater to 
 enjoy. In the few experiments that I have made 
 with Water-skaters on the surface of pools, I have 
 not found the insects liable to be deceived like the 
 Whirligigs with bits of red, white, or dark cloth. 
 But I have held these by white strings, and per- 
 haps the Skaters saw through the device on that
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 177 
 
 account. When I deceived the Whirligigs they 
 were in captivity, and the thread with which I let 
 down such bits of cloth may have been so fine 
 as not to be noticed. 
 
 One finds in May some of the little Water- 
 skaters, very minute as compared with the adults, 
 yet looking like them as real bugs generally do. 
 The little Skaters are very nimble, and seem to 
 know immediately that a bottle is not their cus- 
 tomary home. So small are they that unless you 
 are near a pool, looking intently at the surface, 
 you would hardly notice what they are, and I do 
 not think that it enters into the boys' heads that 
 these are the same as the big Water-spiders. At 
 least one boy that I spoke to about it seemed to 
 be ignorant of the fact. But such minutiae of 
 pond life is not generally regarded by boys. I 
 have heard one of them call a snail a " beetle " 
 and another call a water-shrimp a " bug." 
 
 The latter fresh-water crustaceans are very nu- 
 merous in these pools. The sticks and hiding- 
 places are alive with them. They have five joints 
 to their legs and about thirteen segments to their 
 bodies. Probably they are akin to (j<uii:n<ir>i.< 
 robustus. They are a nuisance, for the bug- 
 hunter can hardly shake the dredger clear of 
 them. Some will stick until the bug-hunter is on 
 the meadow going home, and will then crawl out 
 and demand to be taken back to the brook. One 
 hastens to shake the crawling things out in the
 
 178 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 midst of the grass and leave them to walk back 
 to the pool. If they were beetles with wings, 
 one could easily drop them and relieve one's con- 
 science by the remembrance that they could fly. 
 But such mode of progression is denied the wa- 
 ter-shrimps, and if it happens to be a day when 
 the bug-hunter is specially tender-hearted he will 
 turn back and shake the dredger over the brook 
 once more. If it be a hard-hearted period, the 
 bug-catcher proceeds onward with a guilty con- 
 sciousness that he will see the dried bodies of 
 those shrimps adorning his dredger next day. 
 Whichever way the bug-catcher decides, his peace 
 of mind is destroyed, and he mentally anathema- 
 tizes the water-shrimp. 
 
 Here on our pathway, as we go to get "' bugs," 
 is an old shoe, cast away on the hill-side. Was 
 there ever a fabled divinity of the ancient time 
 to whom old shoes were sacred ? Memory saith 
 not, but to Vidar the Silent, the son of Odin, 
 were due the scraps of leather that were cut from 
 the toes and heels in making patterns for shoes, 
 and the Norse shoemaker who wished to assist the 
 gods was charged to throw away all such pieces, 
 since it was supposed that they went to make 
 Vidar the Silent's shoe. Of this it was told, " It 
 is a thick shoe, of which it is said that material 
 has been gathered for it through all ages." Per- 
 haps, if Vidar had not been too proud to receive 
 offerings of old shoes, he might have constructed 
 his own foot-covering the sooner.
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 179 
 
 Pop ! pop ! pop ! in a succession of splashes, 
 go the frogs into the water, till the sound resem- 
 bles a small cannonading extending up the stream 
 in honor of one's coming. Small idea have the 
 frogs of welcoming any one, however. Sunning 
 themselves on the banks, they hear the sound of 
 footsteps, and hastily arise and throw themselves 
 beneath the flood. Good reason, too, have they 
 for such cautiousness. One boy informed me that 
 he made sometimes seventy-five cents per day in 
 catching frogs for a Frenchman, and on a remark- 
 able day this boy earned a dollar. No wonder the 
 frogs flee. 
 
 There is something pleasantly meditative about 
 a frog that sits on a bank. One feels inclined to 
 sit down beside him and inquire the subject of his 
 meditations. Why should the heralds of the 
 Middle Ages have used the frog as a symbol of 
 degradation ? I would not reveal such a fact as 
 that to froggy, if I sat beside him. I would, in- 
 stead, point out to him the blessedness of the fact 
 that there are no pike in this brook, and quote to 
 him Izaak Walton's words : " It is observed that 
 the pike will eat venomous things, as some kinds 
 of frogs are, and yet live without being harmed 
 by them ; for, as some say, he has in him a nat- 
 ural balsam or antidote against all poison." Did 
 not Queen Elizabeth call Francis of Anjou her 
 " Frog " ? It was not complimentary to Francis* 
 looks, but froggy would not understand the sar- 
 casm.
 
 180 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 I have my own idea why V<i>icx*<t 
 wears black. I also would wear mourning if I 
 flitted daily by this brook and saw the cruel deeds 
 done here. One day in April when Vanessa was 
 winging up and down the creek, I was passing 
 under the willows where their dropped-off blos- 
 soms lay like so many fuzzy, brownish caterpil- 
 lars on the grass, and I made my way to a well- 
 known pool. Horrors were enacting there. 
 
 Vanessa Antiopa. Mourning Cloak. 
 
 Is there anything more cool than the way in 
 which human beings assert their ownership of 
 smaller beings ? " Here 's my frog," cried a lit- 
 tle fellow as I drew near. The youngsters were 
 engaged in the time-honored custom of killing a 
 frog. The poor creature, already hurt, was swim- 
 ming with the little strength left it, and a boy 
 caught it up only to throw it back into the water 
 as a target for more shots. I fled from the spot.
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 181 
 
 I wonder that Vanessa can bear to spend her life 
 by a creek that has such sights to show, but I think 
 she shows good taste in dressing in mourning 
 
 If I am ever the editor of a newspaper I shall 
 certainly write an editorial on "The Opinions 
 Of Frogs." " Qu'en disent les grenovilles?" 
 "What will the frogs say?" was the old court- 
 phrase at Versailles when high-born beings spoke 
 of the inhabitants of Paris. Would that a little 
 more deference to the opinions of frogs might 
 prevail nowadays. 
 
 Bah ! What becomes of our boasted civiliza- 
 tion when it is looked at through the eyes of one 
 of the lower creatures ? Have I not seen a per- 
 son, otherwise intelligent and good-natured, slap 
 ants so as not to kill them, but leave them pain- 
 fully stumbling along wondering what right such 
 a giant had to put them in pain ? Have I not 
 known a person to give partially stunned flies to 
 Skaters ? Have I not known a teacher to dissect 
 a sea-urchin alive before his class ? As for those 
 abominable " naturalists " who pin bugs, beetles, 
 and flies alive and leave them to die lingering 
 deaths, I have no words strong enough to say of 
 them ; and if I thought that by writing this book 
 I should interest some person who would catch 
 and torment any of the lower creatures, I would 
 put my manuscript in the fire. Better is it with 
 the Moslems to let a moth fly by unmolested, be- 
 lieving that it is a " messenger sent from the dead
 
 182 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 to see what is transpiring upon the face of the 
 earth," than to have no more tenderness for the 
 creature than to pierce its vitals with a pin and 
 leave it to endure agony. 
 
 But there is small use in lecturing boys. An- 
 other day I came across two of them trying their 
 slings on a polliwog in a pool. They " smashed " 
 him, as one of them stated, and, on my express- 
 ing a wish to know why they did such deeds, one 
 of the boys informed me that the polliwog had 
 no business to be there. 
 
 " Why, yes, he has," I said. " He was hatched 
 here." 
 
 " How do you know where he was hatched? " 
 queried one youngster. 
 
 " Well, it was in this brook," I responded. 
 
 And then, proceeding in a severely virtuous 
 vein, I said, "You would n't like it, if you were 
 a polliwog." 
 
 " Yes, I should," said the Incorrigible. " I 'd 
 sneak away where they could n't find me." 
 
 " Maybe you would n't have sense enough to 
 do that," I answered, preparing to leave such a 
 reasoner. 
 
 "Yes, I should," answered he, with perfect 
 faith in his own powers. 
 
 And, as I climbed the bank, he sent after me 
 this awful threat, " If you 's a polliwog, we 'd 
 smash you, too." 
 
 Would he, indeed! Depravity, thy name is 
 Boy.
 
 FROGS, BOYS AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 183 
 
 And yet my conscience smites me when I say 
 so, for have I not held entertaining conversations 
 with boys along this creek, and have they not 
 told me things about water-creatures that inter- 
 ested me much ? Sometimes the things were true, 
 sometimes false, but, at least, the boys believed 
 them, and did their best to impart to me their 
 knowledge. Let me not be ungrateful. 
 
 Beside this pool one morning came a youth (I 
 think the same one who made the fearful threat 
 about the polliwog), and lamented to me that he 
 had been compelled to sell two frogs for a nickel 
 apiece. 
 
 The subject of frogs was called to our minds 
 by the sight of one dead in the pool. The boy 
 confessed that he had killed that frog, but he said 
 it was too nearly dead before for him to sell it. 
 
 " Ought to have had a dime," said he, referring 
 to the sale he made to the Frenchman. " / would 
 n't eat them for a hundred dollars. The French- 
 man says his brother eats them. He says they 're 
 nicer than any other meat." 
 
 And it seemed to me that two nickels was 
 rather small pay for the labor of splashing around 
 in a pool catching two frogs, and then tramping 
 several miles to sell them. However the boy was 
 not discouraged. The pool had been clear when 
 he caught the two, and he thought he had seen 
 two others in it. He was coming back after them. 
 
 And then ensued a talk on the prices of frogs.
 
 184 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 Some boys must have a faculty for getting' more 
 money than others out of that Frenchman, or else 
 the frogs they catch are bigger than those caught 
 by others, for this boy, on my mentioning one fel- 
 low who had received a dollar, said, " That 's for 
 a dozen." 
 
 The dead frog in the pool was estimated by this 
 young financier to be worth about ten cents, if 
 the creature had been in good condition. 
 
 This youngster and his companions tramped on 
 up the stream, and left me to sit down on the 
 bank in blissful solitude. But it was only for a 
 moment. A boy and two dogs came along the 
 side of the bank. The boy was bent on giving 
 the dogs a bath, and he did so, seizing them by 
 the neck and back and throwing them in. They 
 were good sized-fellows, half Newfoundland, but 
 not yet full grown, and they did hate their bath, 
 but they had to endure it. Their master -regaled 
 me with a tale of the way in which he had tried 
 to make them swim in salt water, and how they 
 swam in it to some schooner, thinking it was 
 land, and then the poor, disappointed brutes had 
 to turn around and swim back. The boy was 
 afraid they would drown, and indeed they were 
 quite exhausted on reaching land. 
 
 This boy was quite a communicative, pleasant 
 little fellow. He was full of ideas about bugs, 
 and anxious to know more, and volunteered the 
 information that frogs have to come to the top
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER, 185 
 
 of the water to breathe. Finding that I agreed 
 with him in this, he furthermore informed me that 
 my dredger was a fine one. It was rather amus- 
 ing to hear him admire the ragged old thing, but 
 I believe boys have coveted it before. He said, 
 though, that it was not the kind to catch frogs 
 with ; they would jump out ; one must have a 
 long, sack-like dredger. And he said that frogs 
 have regular sleeping-places in holes on the sides 
 of pools. 
 
 " You can come to this pool at night and see 
 them," he said ; " some go in the grass, and the 
 same frogs go in the same holes. They keep 
 their heads a little out of water all night." 
 
 I unwittingly informed this boy of the inten- 
 tions of the former one in regard to coming back 
 after those two frogs. My second visitor's cupidity 
 was aroused, and he announced that, if he could 
 get one, the other fellow would be disappointed. 
 
 This second boy proceeded to describe to me 
 the water-snakes found in the other creek. 
 
 " There are none in here," said he ; " I 've 
 hunted for them." 
 
 And I could verify that statement, for I have 
 never seen any here. 
 
 " They 're about as long as your stick," he 
 went on, referring to the nearly yard-long handle 
 of my dredger. " They 've got a red streak on 
 top of their backs, and they 're gray, with black 
 streaks on the sides. They bite, and they 're
 
 186 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 poison. The boys catch them with a noose of 
 grass. Some of those oats would do." 
 
 And springing across the pool, the boy picked 
 a shoot of oats, stripped off the heads, and pro- 
 ceeded to make a dainty little slip-noose of the 
 thin end. 
 
 " You hold that in the water and let the water- 
 snake go through it, and then you just draw it 
 up and catch him," said he, suiting the action to 
 the word ; " only you must draw it up just back 
 of the head or else they '11 bite you. We catch 
 lizards that way." 
 
 " Water-lizards ? " I asked. 
 
 " No ; just any kind of lizards," said he. 
 
 " What do you do with the water-snakes ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 "My father sold three for me the other day," 
 said the boy, and then he mentioned the name of 
 a San Francisco druggist as the purchaser. 
 
 " What does he do with them ? " I asked. 
 
 " He 's a snake-charmer," said the boy. 
 
 And, seeing that he would answer any question 
 that I had a mind to ask him, I queried, inquisi- 
 tively, " How much did he pay you for the water- 
 snakes ? " 
 
 " Half a dollar apiece," said the boy. 
 
 As I sat beside the pool I twice saw a leech 
 swimming through the water, its body undulating 
 as it moved. 
 
 The boy caught sight of it and said, " That 's 
 just the way the water-snakes swim.''
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 187 
 
 "They go down differently from what they 
 come up, don't they?" he went on, as the 
 leech descended near the further bank ; " they go 
 straight down, and they, wiggle when they come 
 up." 
 
 Maybe so, but I never noticed it. 
 
 My talkative companion furthermore stated 
 that "up by the college some boys found a 
 gopher-snake with a weasel in its mouth." 
 
 Ah, many and many an interesting thing have 
 the boys told me. It has been part of my craft 
 to worm information out of them. They are so 
 ready to tell all they know and are so often cor- 
 rect in their observations. And shall my pen 
 revile my benefactors ? But one aches to shake 
 them when they are cruel. 
 
 Nor is cruelty limited by age, for did I not find 
 a five-year-old and a perhaps four-year old may- 
 hap only three on the top of that bank, engaged 
 in tormenting a small butterfly and a moth ? The 
 boys would toss their prizes into the air, let them 
 fly a little way, and catch them again. I remon- 
 strated, but in vain. The younger one opened his 
 hand to show me his moth, and 1 was invited to 
 have a " lady-bug," as one of them called a Jt'm- 
 brotica that he had found. One boy announced 
 that they were going to catch grasshoppers, and I 
 think that the little butterfly was almost dead 
 when I went away. 
 
 I herewith confess that I stole that younger
 
 188 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 boy's moth. I should not have deprived him of 
 it if he had behaved himself, but he went too far. 
 He had done enough in keeping 1 it shut up in his 
 dirty, hot little hand. 
 
 But, by the time I had walked down the road to 
 a pool, the boys came rushing toward it, and before 
 I knew what he was about to do, that younger imp 
 threw his moth into the water. The poor thing 
 struggled, and calling some oats to my assistance 
 I fished it out and clapped it in my tin. More- 
 over I delivered a small-sized sermon to the imp. 
 
 " Give it to me," said the former owner. 
 
 " You can't have it, if you 're going to be so 
 naughty." 
 
 " Give it to me," sternly demanded the boy. 
 
 I looked at him. He had run out-doors so 
 much without his hat that the skin looked almost 
 ready to peel off his forehead. 
 
 " Give it to me," reiterated he, with all the im- 
 pressiveness at his command. 
 
 But I turned 1 and climbed the bank while he 
 proclaimed his desire to throw that moth away 
 out there on the water, and the youngsters an- 
 nounced that they were going to catch some more 
 things and throw them in. But I think that was 
 only an assertion of helpless wrath, for I passed 
 by the pool a little while after and no such work 
 as had been threatened was going on. Privately 
 I was glad that the boy had thrown the moth 
 into the water, for it gave me a chance to take
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER Sit ALL DEER. 189 
 
 the creature home and look at it, a thing I had 
 wanted to do from the first. I had an idea that 
 pay-booty might possibly be Arctia virgo, the Vir- 
 gin Tiger-moth. But it was not. It had pecti- 
 nated antennae, yellow fore wings marked with 
 rectangular blocks of black, its abdomen marked 
 in the same style, while on the hind wings was a 
 tinge of red, in addition to the dark marks. Hav- 
 ing observed so much I let the poor thing go free. 
 " I wept when I was born, and every day shows 
 why/' says old George Herbert. Perhaps moths 
 also groan to themselves about the bitterness of 
 life. If insects could express their feelings to- 
 ward their human persecutors, I think sometimes 
 the creatures w^ould join in something like the old 
 French song : 
 
 " Ah. <ja ira. <ja ira. <ja ira, 
 Les aristocrates a la lanterne." 
 
 I am afraid that the attractions of this brook 
 prove too great for the integrity of the boys at 
 times. 
 
 "Somebody's playing hookey," I heard one 
 boy say, as he came up to a group of three others 
 under some willows. 
 
 " So 're you." 
 
 " I 'm not." 
 
 And the accused boys both repudiated the sug- 
 gestion with virtuous scorn, although a minute af- 
 terward I heard the school-bell ring and no one
 
 190 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 of the four started. They were looking at one of 
 their number who, as far as I could judge, had a 
 little while before this fallen into the brook and 
 was in the process of being restored to dryness, 
 his jacket being spread out on the grass. " Na- 
 ture's unhoused lyceura" had more charms for the 
 four than that school-house on the hill, and they 
 passed me afterwards, bent on some errand by the 
 brookside, yet stopping to inquire if I had found 
 anything ; meaning bugs, of course. 
 
 I have one fear. It is this. I came up a bank 
 a while ago, and in the road above it were a num- 
 ber of school children playing. As I passed with 
 my dredger covered with paper, and my spoon 
 and bottle held unostentatiously in my hand, 1 
 heard in the midst of the noise and confusion 
 what sounded like an indistinct remark about 
 " frogs." There seemed to be no appropriateness 
 in such a reference except that I was near. Now 
 I can endure with equanimity being called a " fish- 
 lady." That is an honorable business. But, if 
 I am about to be looked upon as a " lady that 
 catches frogs," I demur. My heart begins to fail 
 me at the prospect. 
 
 The boys do not suspect me of such a thing, or 
 they might not tell me of their trades so freely us 
 they do. How wicked should I be to take advan- 
 tage of them and steal their business ! 
 
 But this Frenchman and his brother are far 
 from being like " poor Tom that eats the swirn-
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 191 
 
 ming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt, 
 and the water." The Frenchmen are more partic- 
 ular, and if a frog is not a " red-legger " it is not 
 salable to them. 
 
 So are the boys driven to using their eyes in 
 picking out their wares, for it would be a sorry 
 thing indeed to carry the wrong objects several 
 miles and then be met with a flat denial of money 
 in return for them. 
 
 It is said that the old. bald, wrinkled Paul of 
 Russia, who was so ugly that he did not dare put 
 his countenance on his coin, issued a proclamation 
 prohibiting, under penalty of killing by the knout, 
 any one of his subjects from making use of the 
 expression " bald," in speaking of the head, or 
 " snubbed," in referring to the nose. And, more- 
 over, the same gentleman, with the characteristic 
 fear of the Czars, forbade the academy to use the 
 word " revolution " in speaking of the courses of 
 the stars. 
 
 I suppose there are tabooed subjects of conver- 
 sation with all persons, and I should think that 
 the special objects to be avoided in conversing 
 with frogs would be " boys " and " Frenchmen." 
 
 A little Portuguese boy that I found several 
 days after my conversation with the boy who had 
 the dogs gave me a much more moderate estimate 
 of the length of water -snakes than the former 
 boy had given. The little Portuguese said that 
 the snak-s went " down in the mud.'
 
 192 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 But I came to the conclusion that perhaps he 
 hardly knew the creatures after all. His face ex- 
 pressed a doubt of himself, although he asserted 
 that the snakes were in the other creek. He had 
 seen them there. Another boy with him volun- 
 teered the guess that they caught "fish and 
 things." 
 
 In like manner did I hear a vague rumor from 
 one boy of a kind of bug, in the other creek, that 
 " had horns behind." Taking the peculiar de- 
 scription that the boy did his best to give me, I 
 should judge that he meant the kind of Water- 
 scorpions that bear breathing-tubes behind like 
 Ranatra. There are no such Scorpions in this 
 brook, I believe. In all my dredging I have 
 never found any of that tube-bearing variety, 
 Nepa, in this stream. Probably, from the pecu- 
 liar manner in which the scorpions of this brook 
 carry their eggs, the creatures belong to the genus 
 Belostoma. 
 
 There is a great clump of the white -veined 
 thistle opposite the willows. There in a thistle- 
 leaf I once found the caterpillar of the butterfly 
 known as the " Painted Lady," Pyrameis cardui. 
 The Lady preferred living alone, as all her folks 
 do. In one spiny leaf she had made a little web, 
 and an intruder had to break into her home to ex- 
 amine her, since she had drawn the two sides of 
 the leaf partly together. I bore the Lady home, 
 and heroically pricked my fingers many a time
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 193 
 
 in obtaining her food. She did not seem very 
 friendly. I do not see how any one who fed on 
 such very spiny thistles could be. 
 
 But she grew at a startling rate, and, one June 
 day, relieved me from making any more trips to 
 thistle-bushes by turning herself into an angular 
 brown chrysalis, adorned with golden tubercles. 
 She lived in this style while I packed her up and 
 took her with me on a journey of a hundred and 
 twenty-five miles. Then, one July day, the joints 
 of my Lady's chrysalis began to look juicy, and 
 great wriggling took place. My Painted Lady 
 came out of retirement gorgeous in coloring. One 
 evening, taking my Lady, I walked out into the 
 forest, and having found Achilles in the shape of 
 his namesake the white yarrow, Achillea, I laid 
 my Lady at the feet of the gallant Grecian for 
 protection. My Lady clung to my finger as 
 though loath to part from me, but she was soon 
 made to understand that separation was inevita- 
 ble, and she subsided under the yarrow leaves. 
 There, as she held up her wings, all her brilliant 
 colors were hidden, and the gray under-surface 
 was so much like the general gray shade of the 
 yarrow leaves and the grasses that I could but 
 just distinguish her as I stood up. So she nes- 
 tled down at Achilles' feet for the night, and I 
 saw her no more. Perhaps, in her Sittings through 
 the pine-woods of that hamlet by the sea, she has 
 ere this found her destined mate, a butterfly that
 
 194 
 
 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 would never have had a chance to see my Lady 
 had I not been the cause. 
 
 Another companion that I took on my journey 
 was a female " Tussock Moth," Orgyia. She 
 had no wings, as the lady-moths of her variety do 
 not fly. One can find the Orgyia caterpillars in 
 this district, though not in great numbers. They 
 are pretty creatures, small, with four gray tufts 
 
 Caterpillar of Orgyia. 
 
 on their backs like a camel's hump, and the gray 
 hair hangs over their heads like bangs. The 
 segments are marked with red and yellow, but the 
 most conspicuous things about these caterpillars 
 are the long tufts of black hairs. One stands out 
 on either side of a caterpillar's head like antennae, 
 and another such shoot adorns the end of his body. 
 I fed mine on apple-leaves, and it was on such 
 a leaf that one made a thin, fuzzy, light-grayish 
 cocoon. A winded male with the comb-like an-
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 195 
 
 tennae of the Orgyia, and grayish wings, brown 
 underneath, made a hole in one end of his cocoon 
 
 Cocoon of Orgyia. 
 
 so neatly that a person looking at the cocoon 
 would not have known that the moth had come 
 out. 
 
 It seems strange to see a moth without wings. 
 These lady-moths lead very stupid lives, hardly 
 
 stirring from their places during their whole ex- 
 istence, sometimes, and consequently it w:i- :t
 
 196 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 very startling event for Madame Orgyia to be 
 transported to a different section of the country. 
 But she did not object in the least. She looked 
 somewhat like a beetle that had lost his intellect. 
 She gave but little sign of intelligence, but, while 
 away with me, she laid six small eggs, that looked 
 like young pills. 
 
 One day as I wandered beside this brook, bent 
 on ascertaining what manner of creatures lived on 
 its borders, I came to a tree, and, peering in among 
 its leaves, I spied something that gave me to un- 
 
 The leaf I found. 
 Eggs of Chrysopa. Golden-eyed Fly. 
 
 derstand that some of the Brookside People had 
 been there before me. 
 
 " They look like beans, growing," thought I to 
 myself, after I had carried my prize home. 
 
 " They look like mould," said a girl friend to 
 me, when I showed them to her. I thought we 
 were both right. 
 
 On the back of one of the leaves were what 
 looked to my friend like a fungous growth, but to 
 me like twenty little beans not bigger than pins' 
 heads. These green "beans" were all standing
 
 FROGS, SOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 197 
 
 up in the air on five-sixteenth-of-an-inch long 
 steins, much as real beans hoist themselves up 
 when they begin to grow. Unfortunately I broke 
 the " bean " off one of the stems, so but nineteen 
 remained. The " beans " were oval, opaque, and 
 inclined to shiver on their slight stems like a 
 number of reeds. 
 
 I took the leaf home, and looking at it, I saw 
 at the bottom of one of the bean-stalks a little 
 green plant-louse, or aphis. He was standing look- 
 ing up the stalk as if he longed to climb. It was 
 quite a tree to him. He did not know what enemy 
 lived on it. If he had climbed, it would have been 
 almost a repetition of the story of Jack and his 
 Bean-stalk, except that perhaps the giant might 
 not have been awake by the time Aphis arrived 
 at the top. 
 
 For, although little Aphis did not know it, 
 there really was a giant at the top of the stalk, as 
 there was on Jack's, a giant that was coming down 
 by and by to startle all the Aphides. 
 
 The " beans " were really eggs, and one day, 
 after they had turned to a lilac color, they hatched. 
 How those Giants of the Bean-stalks ever got 
 down from such heights I do not know. Perhaps 
 they tumbled. If they did, it must have been like 
 falling over a precipice to them. 
 
 But when I looked, there they were on the leaf, 
 queer little mites of brown things, with six legs 
 and a pair of nippers apiece. The eggs that the
 
 One of the "Giants monster dwindle to a dot. He 
 
 of the Bean-stalks" wftg emphatic dot, how- 
 
 (A little larger than , , 
 
 mine when full- ever. A whole world of deter- 
 grown.) mination was in him. 
 
 Blood-thirsty Giants these creatures were for 
 one-day-olds. I hunted some Aphides for them, 
 and the Giants went to work at once. It is " ex- 
 cellent to have a giant's strength," but more espe- 
 cially to have his jaws in this instance. No mat- 
 ter if an aphis were almost twice as large as a 
 Giant, into that aphis' side went those dreadful 
 little pincers, and the Giant held on. 
 
 Wise men tell us that the mandibles of these 
 larvae are hollow underneath, and that the little 
 maxillae exactly fit into these grooves, and so 
 make a pair of tubular forceps through which the 
 juice passes from the aphis into its eater. Wise 
 men tell us another thing, too, and that is that 
 the feet of the Giants are particularly fitted to let
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DEER. 199 
 
 them run over the twigs and leaves of plants 
 safely so as to find the Aphides. In Europe the 
 gardeners hunt for the Giants, or, as they are 
 more usually called the " Aphis-Lions," and put 
 them on trees that are overrun with Aphides. 
 No doubt the Giants are delighted with such at- 
 tention. The trees are soon cleaned if enough of 
 the Aphis-Lions are found. 
 
 It was necessary to paste paper over the top of 
 the jelly-glass in which I kept the Giants, or else 
 their lively food might have run away. But it 
 became quite a task to hunt enough aphides for 
 the Giants. Their appetites were very good. 
 Rose-bush after rose-bush did I search, and some- 
 times I found what I wanted on wild mallow 
 plants. The Giants grew finely, and each devel- 
 oped a red line on his back. 
 
 One day I gave my Giants an extra good din- 
 ner. I had found a little rose-bush in one corner 
 of the yard that I had forgotten, and it was cov- 
 ered on its fresh ends with hundreds of Aphides. 
 I captured a great number and put them in with 
 the Giants. 
 
 Next day I looked to see if more were needed, 
 but I could see plenty through the glass. The 
 next day things were the same, and the m-xt 
 day after that I began to wonder what was the 
 matter with my Giants' appetites. So I poked a 
 hole in the paper and opened the jelly-glass. The 
 liberated Aphides came out rejoicing, but 
 were the Giants ?
 
 200 
 
 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 I began to pull the dry rose-leaves apart, and 
 lo ! here and there were little white balls that 
 looked like pills, only they were somewhat cottony 
 on the outside. The Giants, being of the same 
 age, had all become sleepy at the same time, and 
 passed into the pupa stage. The cotton of their 
 
 Cocoons of Chrysopa. 
 Mine were just a little larger than this. 
 
 cocoons was beautifully white, and one could im- 
 agine the Giants sleeping quite comfortably inside 
 such sheets. I rejoiced that the last meal I had 
 given them was so good a one, for I should have 
 felt guilty if I had allowed them to go to bed hun- 
 gry. If Aphides notice anything of the sort, how
 
 FROGS, BOYS, AND OTHER SMALL DRER. 201 
 
 they must have rejoiced when they saw the 
 Giants becoming too sleepy to eat them ! 
 
 There were only seven of my cocoons, for the 
 number of the Giants had been mysteriously di- 
 minishing for quite a while. I suspect that they 
 were not always as good to one another as Giants 
 should be, and I am afraid that they perhaps hurt 
 one another so much with those scissory forceps 
 that some of the Giants died. I know I found 
 two that I thought were fighting, and one seemed 
 to be injured by the contest. Although I did not 
 see any cannibalism, yet I know of no reason why 
 the Giants might not have tasted well to one an- 
 other, since they must have been composed in- 
 wardly of juice extracted from the Aphides, and 
 so perhaps have had a similar flavor. 
 
 The usual length of time of the pupa state 
 with the creatures is, I believe, fifteen days. Mine, 
 being the winter brood, slept longer. For five 
 months, commencing with about the 10th of Octo- 
 ber, the Giants slept in their cottony sheets in the 
 jelly-glass. I put it on a shelf in a dark closet, 
 and the 19th of March I looked to see what was 
 coming to pass there. 
 
 I found that four Giants had awaked. Their 
 cocoons and husks were lying on the bottom of 
 the jelly -glass. One Giant, alas! had waked 
 but to die. I found his body. I suppose that he 
 died during transformation, as so many creatures 
 do. Several Giants that were sleepier than the
 
 202 
 
 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 others afterwards rubbed their eyes open and 
 
 arose. 
 
 But the Giants were not as of old. They had 
 
 taken to themselves beautiful gauzy wings, and 
 
 were pretty creatures with green bodies and bright 
 
 yellow eyes. Chrysopa, 
 the Golden-eyed Fly, is 
 the rightful name of 
 these creatures, albeit to 
 
 Chrysopa. 
 The Golden-eyed Fly. 
 
 me the eyes look very 
 much as though made 
 of brass instead of gold. But I would not insult 
 Chrysopa with such a suggestion. Moreover, 
 Chrysopa is not a fly at all, but belongs to the 
 Neuroptera, being a distant relative of the Dragon- 
 flies. Perhaps, on some leaf that I shall never 
 see, there have stood ere now some more little 
 " beans " set up by one of my Giants, and the 
 story of the bean-stalks may all have begun over 
 again.
 
 CHAPTER XIEL 
 
 A LINGERING GOOD-BY. 
 " And these things finish." 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 IT is time to close. And yet there are many 
 things not set down in black and white. Peo- 
 ple might learn much beside this brook. One 
 marvels that they do not come here to study. 
 But I reflect on Peter the Great and am com- 
 forted. People are not far different from those 
 of his times. Poor Peter ! After establishing at 
 great expense that large museum of Natural His- 
 tory at St. Petersburg, he was driven to offering 
 to his beloved subjects a glass of brandy apiece 
 as an attraction that would draw them to look 
 at the wonders of creation in his museum. No 
 wonder this open-air museum of to-day does not 
 draw people. Nature offers no stimulant here, 
 save the golden one of sunshine, tonic enough for 
 those who count their descent from Father Adam. 
 
 But stay. If one is thirsty, one might take a 
 dock-leaf. Does not the fine, name of the dock, 
 Rumex, come from an old Latin word meaning 
 " to suck," since the Romans when thirsty were 
 given to sucking dock-leaves? Can you imagine 
 great Caesar with a dock-leaf in his mouth ?
 
 204 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 Come here in April when dock grows at the 
 bottom of this bank. Come down and see the 
 leaves. No matter if you do tumble. It is as 
 well to tumble down for knowledge sometimes as 
 to climb for it. All knowledge is not on the 
 heights. 
 
 Here on the back of a dock-leaf are the Brook- 
 side Folk that I would have you see. Little 
 black mites, but destined to be beautiful green- 
 winged small beetles, representatives of the 
 Chrysomelidce. Many a time you may notice 
 the marred dock-leaves by the roads as you pass, 
 or catch a glimpse of the small, yellow clusters 
 of eggs of these beetles on some stem, or turned- 
 over leaf. The larvae have such a habit of drop- 
 ping from the leaves that I wonder the mother- 
 beetles place their eggs so near this brook. I 
 should think that the children would fall in. 
 Probably many a miserable little black mite 
 meets this sad fate. 
 
 Keep some of these Iarva3 in a bottle with 
 some soft, damp earth at the bottom, and with 
 fresh dock-leaves, and you will find that when 
 full grown the larvae will descend and make for 
 themselves little burrows in the soil where they 
 will be transformed to light yellow pupas. Put 
 one of these pupae under a microscope, and you 
 will see the short, tiny, black hairs reaching out 
 from the head and the dark dots standing for eyes. 
 Does he know, as he lies motionless in yellow
 
 A LINGERING GOOD-BT. 205 
 
 slumber, that he is being turned about and looked 
 at ? He will know what is done to him shortly, 
 for you shall some day go to his bottle and find 
 him waiting for you with life and motion in him 
 and a perhaps dull green vesture on. If you come 
 early enough you will find him a yellow beetle, 
 with some iridescent shades about him perhaps. 
 He is taking his first feeble footsteps and is some- 
 what inclined to tumble over. I left one such per- 
 son as a yellow beetle one evening, and woke up 
 the next morning to find him a green one ; not so 
 brilliantly green as are specimens that one often 
 meets, but a dull color, still decidedly green. 
 
 In that hole in the root of that live-oak by the 
 little bridge across the creek reside Mr. and Mrs. 
 Sow-bug with their progeny. In that hole, alas ! 
 I once, digging with zeal and a trowel, caught a 
 glimpse of a tail rapidly disappearing in the dd- 
 bris. My efforts were in vain. I could not catch 
 up. What was he? Salamander? Who 'shall 
 tell ? Such glimpses are reminders that there are 
 secret apartments in some of these trees where 
 hermits may live, and they no doubt are rightfully 
 indignant when a trowel reaches in and disturbs 
 
 O 
 
 their meditations. 
 
 Some of these hermits live so far in that they 
 cannot be reached till the tree is down. Such 
 are some of the fat, white larvae of beetles that 
 inhabit live-oak trees. An oak of this kind was 
 chopped down about a mile from here, and a
 
 206 
 
 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 
 friend of mine coming upon the spot gathered 
 some of the numerous beetle-larvae 
 that sprinkled the ground. 
 
 Two that were brought me were 
 great, fat white creatures. One 
 when stretched out was about three 
 and a quarter inches long and half 
 an inch broad ; the other measured 
 two and a half inches in length. 
 
 The trunk of the tree, according 
 
 H:\ to my friend's account, was riddled 
 ^| with the holes of the larvae, and 
 -i the report was that when the trunk 
 first fell it was swarming with 
 them. Those that I had made no 
 more holes, however, seeming to be 
 content to burrow in the earth at 
 Oak-tree larva of the bottom of their jar, and nibble 
 Beetle. ^he live-oak wood put in for their 
 
 benefit. Six little prickles had each larva in lieu 
 of legs, and small reddish spiracles marked the 
 segments of the bodies. 
 
 Larva of Cerambyx heros. 
 It must be very discouraging to be knocked
 
 A LINGERING GOOD-BY. 207 
 
 out of a hole that one has made for one's self 
 with the intention of abiding in it till the larva- 
 life is done. Whether it was this discouragement 
 or not, from some cause my larvae pined, grew 
 flabby in flesh, and evidently gave up their pros- 
 pects of becoming beetles. After living with me 
 a few weeks a larva died. About five months 
 after coming into my possession, a second larva 
 departed from life. He had shrivelled till he was 
 but a faint image of his former plump self. Evi- 
 dently it is necessary that such creatures should 
 be allowed to be hermits and dwell in the interior 
 of oak-trees till perfection is reached. 
 
 I think if my larvae had lived they would have 
 turned to representatives of the Cerambycidce, 
 the Long icor nia of Latreille, the " Fiddlers " of 
 the Germans, since my larvae had the general 
 shape of the children of that family, being larger 
 in front than behind, having six little prickles to 
 represent feet, and having the rings of the body 
 furnished with humps. These were probably use- 
 ful in dragging the larvae through their holes. 
 De Mouffet, the ancient and credulous, has this 
 to say: " Terambus, a satirist, did not abstain from 
 quipping of the Muses, whereupon they trans- 
 formed him into a Beetle called Cerambyy, and 
 that deservedly, to endure a double punishment, 
 for he hath legs weak that he goes lame, and like 
 a thief he hangs on a tree." 
 
 The long, recurved antennae of some of these
 
 208 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 beetles led to a strange story that De Mouffet did 
 his best to perpetuate by writing it down. In 
 speaking of one kind of the family, the Prionus, 
 and mentioning the antennae under the name of 
 " two horns that grow above their eyes," he says, 
 " they are flexible with nine or ten joynts ; not 
 exactly round, but are rough like goats' horns, 
 which, although it can move them every way, yet 
 when it flies it holds them only forth directly ; and 
 being wearied with flying, she useth them for feet ; 
 for knowing that his legs are weak, he twists his 
 horns about the branch of a tree, and so he hangs 
 at ease, as our Bruerus saw in the country about 
 Heidelberg ; in that it resembles the Bird of Par- 
 adise which, wanting feet, clings about the boughs 
 with those pendulous nerves, and so, being tired 
 with labors, takes its ease." 
 
 I do not know whether the old naturalist al- 
 ways meant antennae by " horns." I think he 
 sometimes meant jaws, for he says of one beetle, it 
 " useth its homes for that end for which crabs and 
 lobsters do their clawes." But he says, " Beetles 
 are some greater, some less. The great ones, some 
 have horns, others are without horns. Those that 
 have horns, some are like Hart's horns, others like 
 Goat's horns, . . . others have ram's horns ; some 
 have horns on their nose." 
 
 I have read that an English entomologist named 
 Drury has recommended to all those who are ever 
 cast upon desolate islands where nothing can be
 
 A LINGERING GOOD-BY. 209 
 
 found to eat, that they should search the tree- 
 trunks for such grubs as feed on wood ; and he 
 says that people for a short time, at least, can 
 comfortably live on such grubs. 
 
 Certainly one would have to be somewhat hun- 
 gry to partake of such diet. I imagine, however, 
 that all the courage would be needed for the first 
 bite. It would almost be easier to partake of the 
 
 Live-oak Cocoons. Moths. Cocoons about 
 life-size. 
 
 painted paper-snakes wherewith Agnolo della Per- 
 gola fed his prisoner, Zanobi del Pino, telling him 
 that of a Guelph they would make him a Ghibel- 
 
 line. 
 
 Other things, found on the. live-oak leaves, are 
 numbers of small, white cocoons. I have found 
 them with what looked like small threads runnm 
 their length, and in November some have a round 
 hole in one end. Gather some of the cocoon-
 
 210 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 dotted oak-leaves in the spring. They are easily 
 found, after your eye is once used to looking for 
 them, and in May you will find in your paper- 
 covered bottle small, light-colored moths, looking 
 much like clothes-moths, but smaller if anything, 
 although had I seen them fluttering in the house 
 I should have pronounced them those Tineans of 
 which all good women have such a dread. But 
 look at the oak-moths closely and you will see 
 that their wings are marked with yellow. 
 
 In April on that old willow by the fence where 
 the path is just wide enough for one to walk with- 
 out tumbling off, I found a lady-bug. Not the 
 common kind, but the smaller black variety with 
 a red spot on either wing. Chilocorus is my 
 lady's genus, I believe. The one I found was 
 either of the same variety as the " twice-stabbed " 
 lady-bug that has rendered such service in warring 
 against the scale-insects in California orchards, or 
 was next cousin to that useful beetle. Who was 
 it that first suggested that one or two mashed 
 lady-bugs put into the hollow of an aching tooth 
 would stop the pain ? I read of a naturalist who 
 attempted curing his tooth-ache with this remedy, 
 and he professed to have been relieved. Little he 
 deserved it, though, according to my ideas. 
 What ! Shall a mortal take the Marien-Kafer, 
 the " Lady-beetles of the Virgin," the Vaches de 
 Dieu, and smash them to cure a vile tooth-ache ! 
 " To what base uses we may return, Horatio ! "
 
 A LINGERING GOOD-BY. 211 
 
 Of course where plant-lice are, there come the 
 larvae of the common lady-bugs. Rather fero- 
 cious-looking, but very harmless crea- 
 tures they are. A person will always 
 know the eggs after once seeing them. 
 They are bright yellow, oval, standing 
 
 perpendicularly on one end in a manner T 
 . J^arva of 
 
 that Columbus egg might have envied. Lady-bug. 
 There were seven eggs that I found HyP ** - 
 
 30 mia concer- 
 
 once on the back of a red rose-leaf, but gens. 
 the eggs turned gray just before hatching, and 
 something of the creatures within could be seen 
 through the wails. 
 
 I saw several larvae just coming out of those 
 eggs. A hole would appear in the top of an egg 
 and the larva's head would appear. Then the 
 creature would slowly come out, pulling first one 
 foot free and then another, till all six were loose 
 from the egg. Two larvae lay on their backs, go- 
 ing through this operation. I finally helped one 
 free and put him on a leaf where he lay exhausted. 
 The legs of these larvae look preposterously long 
 when they first come from the egg and have not 
 yet walked. After a number of hours the bodies 
 of the larvae become darker, and the looker-on can 
 recognize the regular lady-bug-grub look. I have 
 raised numbers of thirteen - spot lady - bugs from 
 such larvae. 
 
 There are a great many Aphides beside this 
 brook. One finds the creatures on very vary-
 
 212 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 ing kinds of plants, and has occasionally to brush 
 the crawling things from one's cape. But the 
 enemies of Aphides are abroad, too. The Syrphus 
 flies hover around one's pathway, looking like lit- 
 tle wasps. The Syrphidce will see to it that 
 plenty of their larvae go forth to slay the Aphides. 
 The grub have a way of holding to the leaves 
 with the hind end of the body and stretching out 
 the extensile forward portion, waving it about 
 after the manner of a blind man feeling with his 
 stick. For these Syrphus grubs are blind and 
 footless. The wasp - like flies place their eggs 
 among groups of Aphides, usually not more than 
 one or two eggs on a leaf. The eggs I have found 
 have been white, oval, and about one thirty-second 
 of an inch long. When the grub 
 comes forth it has not far to reach 
 to obtain its food, a convenient ar- 
 Syrphus grub eat- rangement for blind folk, although 
 
 mg P is. 
 
 twig where not a single aphis could be seen, even 
 under the microscope. I suppose there are giddy 
 individuals even among Syrphus flies, but that 
 mother certainly deserved a reprimand for plac- 
 ing her poor blind infant in such a situation that 
 it would have to travel all over the branch, hunt- 
 ing for its first meal. On inspection, however, I 
 found something on the shoot that may have been 
 the white skeleton of a dead aphis. Perhaps that 
 aphis was there alive and well when mother Syr-
 
 A LINGERING GOOD-BY. 213 
 
 phiis deposited that egg. Perhaps she thought 
 that one aphis was enough for her infant's first 
 meal. She did not want him to injure himself by 
 over-eating. Let us be charitable. 
 
 You can see such grubs pick up the Aphides 
 one by one. How must it seem to reach out, 
 catch one's breakfast, hold it up in the air, even 
 if it is as big as one's self, and devour it alive ? 
 
 I have had Syrphus larva? that had a tinge of 
 red in their complexions. When a grub has 
 eaten enough, it sticks itself to a leaf, its body 
 draws up and becomes somewhat hard. After a 
 time this puparium opens and the fly appears. 
 One that I raised had a golden thorax and a gold- 
 and-black abdomen, the legs being yellowish, and 
 the eyes reddish and big. The body was slightly 
 tinged with green underneath. 
 
 Great numbers of these flies must appear in 
 the course of a year. I have found grubs at work 
 in April, and I know not how long before such 
 creatures may have begun to stir. I have found 
 other grubs that came out as flies as late as Octo- 
 ber. We owe much to these diligent blind grubs. 
 If a person can put enough larvae of the Golde,n- 
 eyed Fly, Syrphus, and the Lady-bug on trees 
 infested with plant-lice, there need be little fear 
 that the enemy will not be conquered. There are 
 many little servants ready to aid man if he will 
 but become acquainted with them and show them 
 the work he wants them to do. " All flies shall
 
 214 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 perish except one, and that is the bee-fly,"' says the 
 Koran. I know not whether the writer of that 
 sentence meant Syrphus. I doubt it, but surely 
 that useful insect deserves to live longer than 
 many others. Not for such as it should be such a 
 " Papal Cursing Bell " as that which Horace Wai- 
 pole on Strawberry Hill kept for a curiosity, the 
 bell being that made by Benvenuto Cellini for 
 Pope Clement VII., and being formed of silver, 
 carved outside to represent serpents, flies, grass- 
 hoppers, and other baleful creatures that were to 
 be warded from the lands of the faithful. I trust 
 that the old Popes were versed in entomology, and 
 never banned the Syrphidce or like useful crea- 
 tures. 
 
 If the ecclesiastics trusted entirely to the ob- 
 servations of country folk, however, in discrim- 
 inating between insect foes and friends, I much 
 fear that mistakes were sometimes made, or else 
 the people of those days were brighter than per- 
 sons now. For it sometimes takes a deal of look- 
 ing to know friends from foes, especially if the 
 looker has no books to help him in the search. 
 And yet a friend of mine once told me that she 
 had been in farm-houses in the country where she 
 saw Reports of the Department of Agriculture, 
 containing information about insects that farmers 
 ought to be acquainted with, sold for old paper ! 
 Surely such people deserve all the insect enemies 
 that come to see them.
 
 A LINGERING GOOD-BY. 215 
 
 " We that have good wits have much to answer 
 for," says Touchstone, but, if that plain-spoken 
 clown would ever come out of that forest of Arden 
 in which he perpetually lingers, perhaps he might 
 acknowledge that those who have not good wits in 
 this day have much to answer for, and are obliged 
 to make answer, too, when they see their crops 
 devoured by creatures that they might have known 
 how to fight, if they had read the information 
 freely placed in their hands. And perhaps Touch- 
 stone, beholding the multitude of the insect crea- 
 tion, might again have occasion to remark, " The 
 fool doth think that he is wise, but the wise man 
 knows himself to be a fool," a saying that quite 
 expresses the ideas of people in regard to " bugs ; " 
 those who know but little about them being much 
 more elated with self-wisdom than those who know 
 more. 
 
 I once had the privilege of giving a scarcely 
 one-day-old, perhaps not more than half-a-day-old, 
 Syrphus larva his first meal. He was a brave 
 youth and had started out independently enough 
 to seek his own fortune, when I, like a fairy god- 
 mother gave him my gift. It was an aphis about 
 his size. He stuck his head into the aphis, back 
 of the victim's head and went to work. 
 
 For forty-five long minutes I watched him. 
 He sucked the aphis as a baby would a bottle. 
 Tiring of his devotion to that aphis, I took it 
 from him. Poor fellow ! It was his first disap-
 
 216 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS, 
 
 pointment in life. He fell prone under it at first, 
 and then began to wildly stretch around demand- 
 ing his prize again. I put him on a leaf and al- 
 lowed him to search for an aphis to his liking. 
 But he was hard to suit. I think he had eaten 
 enough, for he walked among the Aphides awhile, 
 an uneasy speck, threatening them with destruc- 
 tion, yet harming none of them. So I thrust him 
 out into the world and let him go on his blind 
 way to shift for himself in the branches of a pink 
 moss-rose. Probably before now he has brought 
 ruin and devastation to many a happy aphis. It 
 is wonderful how independent insects are, even 
 from the first moment they gain strength after 
 coming out from the egg. Without a mother to 
 care for them or a home to shelter them, out they 
 go. The whole world is their home and they are 
 happy in it. Let enemies come and they are 
 ready for them, sometimes more than ready, eager 
 for the conflict, having the spirit of the Templars, 
 of whom it is said that none ever asked the num- 
 ber of the enemy, but only demanded, " Where 
 are they ? " 
 
 But how hard-hearted are the insects toward 
 one another ! In all the time that I have watched 
 them I do not recollect ever having seen an act 
 of compassion performed by any kind of insect 
 for another. The brown plant-lice and the ants 
 that I have found together on the backs of willow- 
 leaves seem to be perhaps as friendly as any in-
 
 A LINGERING GOOD-BY. 217 
 
 sects that I remember at present, and yet I doubt 
 if their relations are prompted by kindness. 
 
 Do not think that all is joy beside this brook. 
 To those who have eyes to read, there are records 
 here of many blighted hopes. A fence runs be- 
 side this brook, and on it, as on others around 
 here, you may find cocoons in their season. But 
 poke your stick into one, and you will find, not a 
 healthy-looking pupa of a caterpillar that shall 
 come out as a moth, but a number of little brown 
 pupae-cases, much smaller than the caterpillar. 
 The cocoon may also contain a remnant of the 
 caterpillar's dried up body. 
 
 Many a caterpillar has crawled up these boards 
 and formed for himself a cocoon in some sheltered 
 nook, and, even while forming it, he must have 
 been aware of certain, very queer and painful feel- 
 ings inside of himself. Awful things went on in- 
 side that cocoon, things never revealed save to 
 those persons who go out some day to gather oo- 
 coons. 
 
 If you wish to have a crop of flies in the spring, 
 .shake the October pupae-cases from the cocoons 
 into your bottle, put it away covered with mos- 
 quito-bar. Some March day you will look into 
 the bottle and will see four or five flies longing 
 for freedom. They are about as large as house- 
 flies, and these villainous beings have lived as 
 maggots inside of the caterpillars and have pre- 
 \vented some moths from ever appearing in the
 
 218 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 world. I have found several such maggots in a 
 single cocoon. In raising caterpillars, one is al- 
 most sure to have some from whose bodies will 
 come maggots. Give such fly-worms a bit of earth, 
 and in an incredibly short time they will trans- 
 form to brown pupae. 
 
 Other inhabitants of the cocoons are the Der- 
 mcstidce, or Skin-beetles, and their children. Go- 
 ing up that hill one day early in September, when 
 all the world was in dust, and when the evil-smell- 
 ing daisies were almost the only flowers in bloom, 
 I saw a cocoon on the fence. Poking into the 
 cocoon I found a perfect beetle and five brown 
 and white larva of the Dcrmestidce. The larvae 
 wore trailing hairs, like a lady's train, 
 behind them, and had a bunch of hair on 
 each side of each segment. 
 
 As for their mother (for I have no 
 doubt she stood in that relation to them), 
 her brown back was marked with white, 
 and she was a deceitful person to have 
 the training of any children ; for if she 
 f th D was disturbed, down she tumbled on her 
 mestidce, back and pretended to be dead. The 
 enlarged. infants did not seem to care how many 
 times she died. Probably they were used to her 
 deaths. 
 
 After keeping them a time I thought that the 
 infants were also dead. They lay motionless in 
 the bottom of the bottle, and bitterly did I accuse
 
 A LINGERING GOOD-BY. 219 
 
 myself of having been their murderer, by not 
 having given them caterpillar or cocoon remnants 
 enough for their sustenance. But hypocrisy ran 
 in the family. In October I tipped out the con- 
 tents of the bottle. There was the remnant of a 
 chrysalis, some skins of larvae, and some cater- 
 pillar hair. There were also two or three beetles. 
 The larva? had not been dead at all. 
 
 The new beetles were like their parent in body 
 and mind, for one immediately fell on his back. 
 his feet folded, and every feature exactly like 
 death. I helped one of the beetles out of the 
 remnant of a pupa case that still stuck to his back. 
 But he was very dead during the operation. 
 
 I remember sitting mourning over a beetle of 
 this kind once. I held him in my hand, and as 
 I wondered why he died, he moved a leg ! I have 
 never become accustomed to the perfection to 
 which the skin-beetles carry their mimicry, and 
 if I have to decide a case of death I usually gaze 
 at the beetle as long as my patience holds out, 
 and if he has not moved then, I leave him, know- 
 ing no more than I did before inspection. Un- 
 less such a beetle is positively shrivelled, no one 
 can tell whether he is dead or not. 
 
 And so the traveller beside this brook and over 
 these hills may learn, if he looks, that man is not 
 the only creature who builds houses and is <Ii 
 appointed about living in them. There is mate- 
 rial here for a fine sermon, after all, take the
 
 220 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 
 
 brook through and through. Here are fightings 
 and murders and thefts and trickeries, the sem- 
 blance of death, the awakening from slumber, the 
 rising to new life, the change from the grovelling 
 on the earth to the soaring of wings in the sun- 
 shine. 
 
 Indeed, I doubt if there is any corner of the 
 world where one may not find one's text and 
 preach a sermon to one's self, if in a sermonizing 
 mood. For myself, there is in these brooks some- 
 thing as eloquent of Him whom they of old called 
 the " All-Father," as there might be for me in 
 any other nook of the universe. His hand has 
 been here also. Let us conclude with the words 
 that old De Mouffet wrote two hundred and fifty 
 years ago, for they are as true now as then, " All 
 things are full of God's wonderfulnesse."
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Aphis, Syrphus grab eating, 
 
 212. 
 Architecture, A triumph of, 
 
 142. 
 
 Beetle, Oak-tree larva of, 206. 
 Belostoraa grandis, 'I'l. 
 Blackberry leaf, Eggs on back 
 
 of, 133. 
 Blue-bells, 80. 
 Brodisea terrestris, Bud and 
 
 flower of, 80. 
 
 Bug, Little, a day old, 133. 
 Butterfly Lily, 82. 
 
 Caddis-worm's House with 
 
 "logs," The bigger, 140. 
 California Hydrophilidae, 30. 
 Calochortus Weedii, 82. 
 Case with Caddis-fly larva, 135. 
 Catch-poll, 9. 
 Caterpillar of Orgyia, 194. 
 Cerambyx heros, Larva of, 20(5. 
 " Chore," Sandy's unfinished, 
 
 138. 
 
 Chrysopa, 21 >2. 
 Chrysopa, Cocoons of, 200. 
 Chrysopa, Eggs of, 1!N>. 
 Chrysopa larva, 1J(S. 
 Cocoon of Orgyia, !!'">. 
 Cocoons of Chrysopa, 200. 
 Communis, Cyclops, 122. 
 Corydalus cornutus, Pupa of, 
 
 153. 
 
 Corydalus, Horned, 151. 
 Corydalus, Larva of Horned, 
 
 147. 
 
 Cyclops communis, 122. 
 Cypris uuifasciata. 1.'. 
 
 Dermestidae, Larva of, 218. 
 Dodecatheon Meadia. si. 
 
 Dragon-fly larva, Large, 6. 
 Dredger, Home-made, 75. 
 Dytiscus, 3. 
 Dytiscus marginalia, Larva of, 
 
 59. 
 
 i Dytiscus pupae, 73. 
 I 
 
 j Eggs of Chrysopa, 1%. 
 I Eggs of Hydrophilidse, :55. 
 I Eggs of Water-boat inaii, 55. 
 Eggs on back of blackberry 
 
 leaf, 133. 
 
 Epaulette, Scorpion-bug bear- 
 ing, 18. 
 
 Fly, Golden-eyed, 202. 
 Fly, Tipulid, S8. 
 Frog-hopper, Larvw of, lu~>. 
 
 Golden-eyed Fly, The, 2(>-_>. 
 Gordius aquaticus, US. 
 
 Hippodamia coiwrgeiw, 211. 
 llonii-inade Dredger. 75. 
 Horned Corydaliw. 151. 
 I Ivdraclnn geograpliica. 1'_'4. 
 Hydrophilida;, Cahfoniia, :!ii. 
 Ilydrophilidaj, Epgs (if. ''*>. 
 Hydrophilida;, Larv;i- <>f. ''>. 
 Hydrotrechus remigis. 2. 
 
 Lady-bug. Larva of, 211. 
 Larva; of Hydrophiliila-. :>. 
 Larva;, Red Dragon-fly. I s - 
 Larva, Case with Caddb-fly, 
 
 186. 
 
 Larva. Chrysopa, I'.W. 
 Larva, I^irge Dragon-fly. <,. 
 Larva. Ma*k "t Lilx'llula 
 
 Drag..n-Hy. '.. 
 Larva. \V:it-r-niitf. 1-4. 
 I^rva of Cerambyx heros. --Hni.
 
 222 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Larva of Dermestidae, 218. 
 Larva of Dytiscus marginalia, 
 
 59. 
 
 Larva of Frog-hopper, 105. 
 Larva of Horned Corydalus, 
 
 147. 
 
 Larva of Lady-bug, 211. 
 Leaf I found, The, 196. 
 Libellula Dragon-fly larva, 
 
 Mask of, 9. 
 Lily, Butterfly, 82. 
 Lily, Mariposa, 82. 
 Live-oak cocoons, 209. 
 
 Mariposa Lily, 82. 
 
 Mask of Libellula Dragon-fly 
 
 larva, 9. 
 
 Miimilus glutinosus, 81. 
 Monarch at rest, The, 73. 
 Moths, 209. 
 
 Moth, Winged male, 195. 
 Moth, Wingless female, 195. 
 Mourning Cloak, 181. 
 My Ranatra, 23. 
 
 Notonecta glauca, 52. 
 Notonectidse, 4. 
 
 Oak-tree larva of Beetle, 
 
 206. 
 
 Orgyia, Caterpillar of, 194. 
 Orgyia, Cocoon of, 195. 
 Orgyia Leucostigma, 195. 
 
 Papilio Turnus, 140. 
 Pup<e of Tipulid*. . V 7. 
 Pupa of Corydalus cormitns, 
 153. 
 
 Ranatra, My ,23. 
 
 Red Dragon-fly larvae, 48. 
 
 Sandy's unfinished "chore," 
 
 138. 
 Scorpion-bug bearing epaulette, 
 
 18. 
 
 Shooting-star, 81. 
 Syrphus grub eating Aphis, 
 
 212. 
 
 Thysanura, One of the, 173. 
 Tipulidse, Pupaj of, 87. 
 Tipulid Fly, 88. 
 Triton, 104. 
 
 Triumph of Architecture, A, 
 142. 
 
 Vanessa Antiopa, 180. 
 
 Water-boatman, Eggs of. .">.">. 
 Water-boatmen, 4. 
 Water-mite Adult, 124. 
 Water-mite Larva, 120. 
 Water-scorpion, 17. 
 Water-skater, 2. 
 Winged male Moth, 195. 
 Wingless female Moth, 195.
 
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