The Beetles of the Mountains 



our attention on the stream whose course we have been 

 more or less following for so long. We have perhaps 

 reached one of those steep places where the vertical 

 fall is almost as great as the distance traversed in a 

 given space, where the turbulent water breaks down 

 in a series of small cascades between the great boulders 

 that encumber its course, or the walls of rock that 

 hem it in, and all the course is lined and fringed with 

 thick matted green moss, either submerged or continually 

 wet with the spray and overflow of the stream ; it is 

 this wet moss of the bed of the rivulet which harbours 

 so many mountain beetles, to ensure whose capture it 

 becomes necessary to adopt a special strategy. 



Let us select some place where the stream has formed 

 a fairly deep basin or pool not more than a foot or two 

 across, and by the side of which is a securely dry bank 

 of clean turf on which to kneel or lie. We stop up the 

 outflow with stones, and moss, and then, tearing from 

 the surface of the rocky bed of the stream handfulls 

 of this thick moss which so copiously clothes it, we 

 submerge it in our little basin, keeping it well under 

 water with superimposed stones ; then prone on the 

 dry turfy bank we watch the surface of the water. 

 Very soon some small beetles will rise to the top out of 

 the sunken moss, whence they can easily be removed 

 to the laurel bottle, either by the finger placed beneath 

 them, or more dexterously by a camel hair paint brush 

 if we have remembered to bring such a thing, and indeed 

 there are few more enjoyable methods of collecting 

 beetles on a hot summer's day than this, lifted far above 



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