Beetles 201 



strenuously object to being confined in the 

 aquarium, but will become accustomed to it in time, 

 and so tame that they may be fed from one's hands. 

 The whirligigs in parts of the Southwest are called 

 " apple bugs," not because they love apples, but 

 because when held in the closed hand for a while 

 they emit an odor like that of sweet apples; but 

 Packard says that when caught they give out a 

 disagreeable fluid; this may be true of Yankee 

 whirligigs but it is not true of the ones I caught 

 as a boy on Brookshaws Pond or the Licking River 

 in Kentucky. 



The whirligig is an extremely shiny beetle of 

 oval form (Fig. 175) and bluish-black color that 

 you will find on the quiet eddies of the brooks, and 

 on the surface of the ponds, where they collect in 

 crowds composed of many individuals. If ap- 

 proached quietly and carefully, they will often be 

 seen resting perfectly still u2)on the surface of the 

 water, but the moment they are disturbed they 

 start rapidly circling around in and out among 

 themselves in a most bewildering manner. 



The captives that I had in the aquarium, being 

 unable to circle around in the wide spirals to which 

 they were accustomed on the open water, would 



