The South Australian Naturalist. 55 



5, Plate 2.) In parts of Mexico the eggs of Water-boat men are 

 used as food. Bundles of vegetation are floated in the waters of 

 the lagoons, and tlie insects thereon deposit their eggs in myriads. 

 These are then collected, dried, and used in the preparation of a 

 cake known as "hautle, " which has been described as "tolerably 

 good, but somewhat fishy in flavour ' ' ! 



Yet another interesting bug {Sphacrodema equis) has been 

 taken in the Torrens ; it is exceedingly plentiful in the backAvaters 

 and drains of the River Murray. This Australian species, in 

 common with members of related exotic genera, carries its eggs 

 about on its back until they hatch. (Fig 6, Plate 2.) It is 

 known that the female of some species thus carries the eggs, 

 whilst in others the male acts as nursemaid : in our representa- 

 tive it is said that the ova are attached to the female. The eggs 

 are small, and the flat bodies of the larvae are rolled therein. 

 Some of the eggs were recently hatched in an aquarium, and the 

 size of the newly-emerged young bugs appeared out of all pro- 

 portion to that of the eggs. Water-beetles and bugs fl}^ from 

 pond to pond when adult, but in the immature stages are con- 

 fined to the pool in which they are hatched. 



NATURE LOVERS OF OLD. 



By "Agapetus." 



In a rash moment I undertook to write some notes for our 

 Magazine. This is the excuse for my daring venture. Recognis- 

 mg that I was not qualified to speak on any branch of Natural 

 Science, it yet seemed to me, as an old man 'myself, that I might 

 endeavour to vindicate the claim of the ancients to an extensive 

 acquaintance with the phenomena of Nature. This theme was 

 suggested in a conversation with an esteemed friend, who 

 scouted his obligations to the great thinkers of old. This line of 

 argument strongly reminded me of Macaulay's comparison of a 

 smnlar dialectician to a child sitting on his father's shoulders, 

 exclaimnig, "See how much taller I am than papa!" 



Without the foundation of fact and inference laid bv our 

 predecessors, defective as it admittedly was, we should have had 

 a very steep hill to climb before we reached the present heights 

 which knowledge has gained. Faulty as their observations were. 

 It IS to be remembered they had not the scientific appliances to 

 supplement the defects of unaided eyesight, nor the accumula- 



