Insect Adventures

all moth and is often seen flitting over our streams and ponds. Th

-weeds? I shall keep Caddis-worms, those insects which clothe themselves with little st

small reeds. It is the little grub that carries through the still waters a bundle of tiny fragments fallen f

jaws and cuts them into little straight sticks, which it fixes one by one to the edge of its basket, always crosswise. This pile of spikes is a fine protection, but hard to steer through the tangle of water-pl

ter of slender roots, reduced by rotting to their stiff, straight, woody axis, it manufactures pretty specimens of wicker-work like baskets. With grains of rice, which I gave the grubs

RATES'

fling among them a couple of handfuls of Caddis-worms. Blunderer that I am, what have I done! The pirate Water-beetles, hiding in the rugged corners of the rockwork, at once perceive the windfall. They rise to the surface with great strokes of their oars; they hasten and fling themselves upon the crowd of ca

s legs, passes under his fangs, and madly flees. He continues to tear away the outer case and to tug a

ning in a larger, outdoor pond, it is clear that, with their clever way of removing themselves, most of the worms would escape scot-free. Fleeing to a distance and recoverin

ECT SU

ely with no other support than their house; they can rest in unsink

rt of raft? Can the shells contain a few bub

he water. Not one of them floats, neither those made of shells nor those of w

ith it; then it sticks the front of its body out of the sheath, leaving a vacant space in the rear, like the vacuum in a pump when one draws out the piston. This promptly fills with air, enabling the Worm to float, s

ts body, which is out of the tube, as a rudder and paddle; and that is all it wishes to do. When it has had enough of the sun, and thinks it

-depth by releasing gradually the surplus air. And this apparatus, so perfectly balanced, so skillful, requires no knowledg