40 GLIMMERCHAFFER. 



finely webbed with minute hairs, and most curi- 

 ously formed for exercising the office of fins or 

 oars. The larva is of a highly singular aspect, 

 having a very lengthened body, furnished, exclu- 

 sive of six legs on the fore-parts, with a great 

 many lateral appendages or processes down the 

 body ; those towards the extremity considerably 

 exceeding the rest. In its motions it is extremely 

 agile, swimming in a kind of serpentine manner, 

 and preying on the smaller and weaker water, 

 insects, minute worms, &c. the head is armed with 

 a pair of forceps, pierced on each side the tip with 

 a small foramen, through which it sucks the juices 

 of the animals on which it preys: the colour of this 

 larva is a very pale or whitish brown, with a high 

 degree of transparency, which renders it a highly 

 curious object for the microscope : its length, 

 when full-grown, is about three quarters of an 

 inch. When the time of its changes arrives, it 

 forms for itself a small oval cell or case on a leaf 

 of sedge or other convenient water-plant, and after 

 casting its skin, becomes a chrysalis: this change 

 usually takes place in the month of August, and 

 the complete insect emerges in that of September. 

 When these animals are congregated together 

 in great multitudes on the surface of the water, 

 which frequently happens in hot weather, they 

 have been observed to diffuse a strong or disagree- 

 able smell to a considerable distance. Like other 

 water-beetles, they fly only by night. They de- 

 posit their eggs, which are very small, white, and 

 of a somewhat cylindric form, on the stems of 



