20 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



But the lives of the infant murderers are gen- 

 erally short in my bottles. The young scorpion- 

 bugs stay about the surface of the water, heads 

 downward, and the bigger bugs evidently consider 

 them as so many joints of meat hung up at the 

 butchers to be hastily disposed of by customers. 

 The baby scorpions must do a deal of dodging 

 about in the brook. 



I believe that it is Herodotus who, among 

 other truthful accounts of the Neuroi who once 

 a year become were-wolves, and the Argippaioi 

 who were bald and snub-nosed from their birth, 

 speaks also of the Issedones who, according to his 

 account, used to devour their dead parents with 

 great pomp and ceremony. This order of things 

 is quite reversed among the Water - scorpions ; 

 that is, the parents devour the children, but there 

 is no pomp and ceremony about the performance. 

 And from all I have seen I have no doubt that 

 the infants would willingly follow the custom of 

 the Issedones if size would permit. 



The large scorpion-bugs, when kept in a bottle, 

 have a habit of choosing some chip or bit of wood 

 and using it as a raft, half-a-dozen or so of the 

 bugs climbing upon it and going sailing up and 

 down from the surface to the bottom of the water, 

 back and forth, on their improvised bark. One 

 does not see the other water-inhabitants taking 

 such rides, as a general thing. The only excep- 

 tions that I remember are the " Whirligig " 



