Q2 DYTISCUS. 



also resides, which is of a very extraordinary shape, 

 and is so utterly unlike the animal into which it is 

 at length transformed, that no one inconversant 

 in the history of insects would suppose it to have 

 the most distant relationship to it ; since it much 

 more resembles the insects of the shrimp tribe, 

 and by the older writers, as Mouffet, Aldrovandus, 

 &c. has actually been referred to that tribe of ani- 

 mals, under the title of Squilla aquatica. It mea- 

 sures, when full-grown, about two inches and a 

 half in length, and is of a pale yellowish brown 

 colour, with a high degree of transparency: the 

 head is very large, somewhat flattened, and fur- 

 nished in front with a pair of very strong, curved 

 forceps, which, when magnified, appear to be 

 perforated at the tips by an oblong hole or slit, 

 through which the animal sucks the juices of its 

 prey: the legs are slender, of moderate length, 

 and placed on each side the thorax, the abdomen 

 being lengthened out to a very considerable ex- 

 tent, and finely fringed or ciliated on each side 

 the tail, which terminates in a most elegantly di- 

 vided fin or process. This larva is of a bold and 

 ferocious disposition, committing great ravages, 

 not only among the weaker kind of water-insects, 

 as well as water-newts, tadpoles, &c. but even 

 among fishes, of which it frequently destroys 

 great numbers in a season, and is therefore justly 

 considered as one of the most mischievous ani- 

 mals that can infest a fish-pond. A larva of this 

 kind has been known to seize on a young Tench 

 of three inches in length, and to kill it in the 



