TOO THE INSECT WORLD. 



the front legs are those which it employs, the hind legs being idle, 

 and merely drawn along behind it. It is generally towards the 

 evening or during the night that it comes out of the water, to walk 

 and to fly, if it wishes to pass from one marsh to another. 



This bloodthirsty insect lives entirely by rapine ; it is one of the 



most carnivorous of insects. 

 ^^^ Those which it attacks die very 



soon after they have been hurt 

 by it. De Geer thinks that 

 the water bug drops into the 

 wound a poisonous humour. 

 It seizes upon insects much 

 bigger, and apparently much 

 stronger, than itself, and does 

 not spare its own species. 

 Fig. 77.— Notonecta giauca. The instnuiient with which 



the Notonecta attacks its prey 

 is composed of a very strong and very long conical beak, formed of 

 four joints. The sucker is composed of an upper piece, short and 

 pointed, and of four fine pointed hairs. 



The female of the Notonecta giauca lays a great number of eggs, 

 white, and of elongated shape, which it deposits on the stems and 

 leaves of aquatic plants. The eggs are hatched at the beginning of 

 spring, or in May, and the young ones at once begin to swim about 

 like their mother, on their backs, belly upwards. M. Leon Dufour 

 says on this subject : — 



*' A dorsal region, raised like a donkey's back, or like the rounded 

 keel of a boat, and covered with a velvety substance, which renders 

 it impermeable, numerous fine fringes which garnish either the hind 

 legs, or the borders of the abdomen and thorax, or lastly in a double 

 row form a crest or comb running down the surface of the belly, and 

 which spread themselves out or fold themselves in at the will of the 

 insect, just like fins, favour both this supine attitude and the accuracy 

 of the swimming movements of the Notonecta. Since Nature — which 

 seems often to delight in producing extraordinary exceptions to her 

 ordinary rules, thus bearing witness to the immensity of her resources- 

 had condemned this animal to pass its life in an inverted position, it 

 was necessary, for the maintenance of its existence, that it should 

 provide it with an organisation in harmony with this attitude. It is 

 also for this object that its head is bent over its chest ; that its eyes, 

 of an oval shape, can see below from above ; that the front as well as 

 the middle legs, agile and curved, solely destined for prehension, car 



