UPON A DAY 217 



guarded by the twisted roots of this old tree. Oh yes, 

 the tent-dweller knew it long ago, and has been on the 

 look-out ever since he first noticed the otter's seal or 

 footprint in the mud. But he has had long to wait, 

 for otters are great travellers, and one has not been __ 

 here for days. Why do not the hounds come here and 

 hunt? Because it is too near to the big river, and 

 once there the otter could laugh at his foes. 



Now there flies past a beetle, larger than a dor- < 

 beetle, but flying with less noise. Suddenly it drops 

 head foremost into the water ; not into the brook, in- 

 deed, but into a stagnant ditch that opens out of it. It 

 is Dyticus, the great water-beetle, and this is its curious 0- 



habit. It is aquatic all the day, aerial all the night. I j^ — I 

 do not find that any one has tried to explain this ikr/rnu^ 



strange contradiction. By all the laws of residential 

 life the water is his home. In the water lie all his 

 seeming interests, his food, his loves, his foes. He 

 was hatched under the leaf of the water-lily, and there, 

 or thereabouts, he passed from a long-bodied hungry 

 larva to a hunched-back helpless chrysalis ; and, by- 

 and-by, with torpedo-like body and swimming legs, 

 broke loose, a perfect water-beetle. How, then, can 

 we account for this irregular habit? Is it not just 

 possible that it may be connected with the process of 



'<^t^Mf-nUfiM^^ 



