202 Bugs, Butterflies, and Beetles 



dive do-vvn under the water when frightened, and, 

 clinging to a plant, remain there for some time. 

 But after a while they became accustomed to my 

 presence and when I caught a fly and held it for 

 them, they would take it from my fingers, and in 

 the winter time after the flies had disappeared they 

 would take little bits of fresh meat from mv finders. 



But the eels that lived in the sand in the bottom 

 of the aquarium would smell the food and come 

 wiggling to the surface of the water in search of it. 

 The eels were extremely small, no larger than 

 small leeches, so when they seized the food which 

 the whirligig beetles held, it made an interesting 

 and even fight. The eels often won, however, by 

 twirling themselves around rapidly like a corkscrew 

 until they threw the whirligig in the air. 



The female whirligig lays her cylinder-shaped 

 eggs on the leaves of water plants, placing them 

 end to end in parallel lines and in a little over a 

 week they hatch out creatures looking like thous- 

 and-legged worms (Fig. 176), each division of the 

 body having a thread-like breathing apparatus 

 very much like the Hellgramites, Dobsons, Clippers 

 or Bogarts. In August these queer things creep 

 out on the shore and spin cocoons in the retirement 



