LARVJE IN DITCHES AND POOLS. 165 



alone requisites for finding out these singular 

 beings on most fine days in summer. But a little 

 while ago the writer was amused to find, on a 

 sunny day in June, the water of a small fountain 

 playing before his study window, thickly populated 

 with these active larvae, and it became an amuse- 

 ment which seldom wearied, to watch their fantas- 

 tic evolutions, and to trace their changes from 

 the larva through the ulterior stage up to the per- 

 fect insect. To this, however, we shall probably 

 have occasion to revert before the conclusion of 

 this work. 



Another instance of a curious contrivance for 

 assisting the breathing of a larva, whose body is 

 wholly immersed in water, may also be found 

 near home. Most probably the majority of our 

 readers have seen, or at any rate are well ac- 

 quainted with the apparatus by which the diver 

 descends and works under water. Lest some 

 should not, we may mention that it consists of a 

 water-tight dress, which covers the diver from 

 head to foot, while his head is enclosed in a 

 helmet, or hood, furnished with a pipe or hose, 

 which is long enough to reach to the surface of 

 the water, and is there generally connected with 



