WATER-INSECTS, 289 



for oblivious apparently of the important distinction between 

 head and heels,, with the latter upwards and the former im- 

 mersed,, they now hung as it were suspended in the water, 

 then darted off with the celerity of a six-oared cutter. All 

 these living objects, as they met the eye, were in perfect 

 harmony with the surrounding scene of peace. What then 

 could we discern amiss in the pond and its joyous occupants ? 

 Actually, we saw little more than what we have attempted to 

 describe, but our smattering of knowledge concerning the 

 purposes and practices of Water-insects, served to throw a dark 

 shade of cruelty and violence, on the one hand, of suffering 

 and privation on the other, over the moving picture of the pond. 



We knew that the Insect world of waters was emphatically 

 a world of destructiveness, and that each of the above described 

 creatures, wheeling about so merrily on the pond's surface, 

 was in pursuit, indeed, of pleasure but of pleasure derived 

 chiefly from the chase of living prey, or the cannibal delight 

 of devouring it. Neither on the surface only, but down to its 

 lowest depths, the pond was teeming with a carnivorous multi- 

 tude : some (for Insects) of prodigious size, and of uncouth 

 and frightful shapes; others of almost invisible minuteness, 

 but all alike busy and happy in cutting off the happiness of 

 their fellows. Well ! there was nothing in this greatly dis- 

 cordant with the general order of things, natural and moral ; 

 but for this very reason the train of thinking it suggested 

 soon brought disturbance to that sensation of peacefulness 



VOL. i. s 



