CHAPTER II. 



WATER-SCORPIONS. 



" I do desire we may be better strangers." 



As You Like It. 



A SMALL boy stood beside the brook, gazing 

 intently at my exertions. His 

 cheeks were very rosy and a wide 

 patch of mud adorned either side 

 of his mouth. The brook evi- 

 dently had attractions for him, 

 but he was dissatisfied with the 

 present results of dredging. 



" Say, did you ever catch them 

 kind of bugs that look like 

 shrimps ? " asked he, after eying 

 my bottle. " Not just like them, 

 either. There 's one, now " and the dredger 

 came up with an ill-looking scorpion-bug clinging 

 to it. 



" One of them fellers caught hold of me once," 

 he went on, confidentially, " right hold of my 

 thumb-nail, and he just held on and pulled till 

 my thumb-nail came out. It's growed again, 

 though," and, in proof of his thrilling tale, he 



Water-scorpion. 



