HOUSE-CARRIERS UNDER WATER 



February 2jd 



AST week we made the acquaintance of 

 those queer house-carriers of the trees, 

 the bag-worms, with their thatched and 

 ornamented cocoons now firmly swung 

 among the winter twigs. But there is 

 another house-builder that few of us ever 

 see in its home the caddis. He lives 

 on the pebbly bottom of the stream or the shallows of 

 the pond. Even as we stood upon the black ice at the 

 edge of the dam, gathering our bag-worms last week, we 

 need only have lain down upon the ice and looked be- 

 neath to have seen our caddis crawling upon the bot- 

 tom, leisurely lugging its stone cottage or log -cabin 

 around with him. But who would ever think of going 

 "bug-hunting" in winter? This stream, locked fast and 

 muffled in ice, or bubbling beneath the snow-drift, its 

 overhanging icy border fringe crowding close upon the 

 ripples in the intense cold, would hardly invite the en- 

 tomologist as a likely field for specimens. The city nat- 

 uralist who happens to keep an aquarium knows with 

 what difficulty he can keep it stocked in the winter 

 months if he would depend alone upon the dealers in 

 aquarium supplies. A few lizards, polliwogs, and gold- 



