WATER-SCORPIONS. 27 



For all of which Ranatra was most eminently 

 fitted. Many a time had I thought Ranatra 

 dead, but the rascal came to life a few minutes 

 afterward. So, one day, when I had had him in 

 my possession about nine months, I hardly be- 

 lieved him dead upon finding him lying prone in 

 the water. He had shammed so much that I 

 hustled him around shamefully before I believed 

 the fact of his decease. But Ranatra was truly 

 dead this time. I put him in a separate jar of 

 water, having a faint hope that he might revive 

 during the night, but in the morning he was still 

 limp, and a couple of pond-snails, one on each 

 side of him, were performing the last kind of- 

 fice for the dead in cleansing Ranatra from the 

 green scum that had attached itself to him. 



Peace to his ashes. I did not know how I 

 loved him until he died. Never did I part from 

 a bug with such regret. No post-mortem exami- 

 nation that I could have made would have revealed 

 the cause of his death. Perhaps it was old age, 

 since he was fully grown to all appearances when 

 I found him, and wise men tell us that the life of 

 an insect is often not much more than a year in 

 length. It may be he was Ranatra the Aged. 

 The jar looked lonely without him, he had lived 

 in it so long, and I felt half inclined to think 

 that, in spite of his having dwelt with them so 

 securely for so long a time, he had at last fallen 

 a victim to some of those cowardly cousins of his, 



