THE TYRANT OF THE POOL 29 



easily imagine she was a different kind of 

 beetle. 



Nothing is safe from this Tyrant of the Pool. 

 He attacks insects, tadpoles, newts, snails, 

 worms and little fishes. He is a cannibal, too, 

 and thinks nothing of making a meal of one 

 of his own relations ; two Brown Beetles will 

 sometimes have a terrific fight, and when the 

 weaker of the two is killed the victor will 

 proceed to eat him. 



When he has done as much mischief as he 

 can in one pool, the Brown Water-beetle will 

 come out of the water and fly off to another 

 one. He chooses the evening time for his 

 flight, climbs up the stem of a tall water plant, 

 unfurls his gauzy wings, and starts off in quest 

 of fresh hunting-ground. Sometimes, how- 

 ever, the beetle comes to grief on these ex- 

 peditions, for he is not always careful to look 

 where he is going, and he has been known to 

 mistake the glass roof of a green house for 

 a pool of water and comes hustling down on 

 the top of it with a tremendous thud ! He 

 must be very much surprised, I should think, 

 to find the water so hard. Perhaps he thinks 

 winter has come and the " pond " is frozen 

 over. 



