190 INSECTS. 



The Wat£R Tipula has an oblong {lender body, four feet fixed on the 

 breaft, four feelers near the niouth ; four weak wings, apparently not 

 proper for flying, but leaping only. It runs with wonderful lightnefs on 

 the furface of the water, fo as fcarcely to put it in motion. It is forne- 

 |:innes fecji in rivers, and on their banks, efpecjally under Ihady trees 5 and 

 generally in fwarms. 



The Common Water-Fly alfo breeds in this fame manner. This 

 is by fome called the Notoneda, becaufe it does not fwim on its bellv, 

 but on its back : nor can we help admiring that fitnefs in this infed: for 

 its fituation, as it feeds on the under fide of plants which grow on the 

 furface of the water ; therefore, being formed mouth upwards, it feeds 

 with greater convenience. 



The Water. Scorpion is near an inch in length, and about half an 

 inch in breadth. Its body nearly oval, very flat and thin ; its tail long 

 and pointed. The head fmall ; the feelers appear like legs, refembling 

 the claws of a fcorpion, but without points. This infed is generally 

 found in ponds, and is very tyrannical and rapacious. It deftroys 

 twenty times as many as its hunger requires. I have feen one of thefe, 

 put into a bafon of water, in which were thirty or forty worms of the li-. 

 bellula kind, each as large as itfelf, deftroy them all in few minutes, 

 getting on their backs, and piercing with its trunk through their body. 

 Thefe animals however, though fo formidable to others, are nevenhelefs 

 themfclves greately overrun with a little kind of loufe, about the fize of 

 a nit, which very probably repays the injury which the water-fcorpioa 

 inflifts upon others. 



Water fcorpions live in the water by day; out of which they rife in 

 the dufk of the evening, and flying from place to place, betake them- 

 felves, in queft of food, to other waters. The infe6b, before its wings 

 ^re grown, remains in the place where it was produced ; but, when per- 

 fedt, fallies forth in fearch of a companioni to continue its pofterity. 



THE EPHEMERA. 



THAT there Ihould be a tribe of flies whofe duration extends but to 

 a (i^y, feems furprifing ; but the furprife increafes, when we arc 



