THE WHIRLIGIG WATER-BEETLE 



March 2d 



IBERNATION is the law among the in- 

 sects which survive the winter; but, there 

 is a notable exception, they are not all 

 asleep. Indeed, if I were asked to name 

 the sprightliest bit of life to be found in 

 all the winter landscape, I think my choice 

 would have to be, not the mouse, nor chickadee, nor 

 even the hare, but a little dweller in the pond or brook, 

 one of the lively brood that we brought up in our net 

 last week as we dredged in the mud for our aquarium 

 the little black whirligig-beetle known as the Gyrinus. 

 Had we approached the bank more cautiously, we need 

 only have skimmed the surface of the water to have 

 captured a whole family of them. 



It is apparently summer all the year round to the 

 Gyrinus. They take little account of the changes in 

 the calendar, and I fancy their idea of the seasons must 

 be summed up simply as "green summer" and "white 

 summer." The caterpillars and thaw butterflies, grass- 

 hoppers, and other insects which we find in the freez- 

 ing winter days are numb and stiff with the cold, but 

 there is no numbness nor stiffness known to these little 

 black bodies that whirl in their maze of ripples in many 

 an opening in the ice along the edge of the pond. 



