CHAPTER III. 



MY WATER-LOVERS. 



IT is March. Let us go dredging for Water- 

 Lovers, alias Hydrophilidce. As one comes to 

 the brook on such a day, one may 

 glance across the ravine, and, sud- 

 denly, in between one's self and the 

 California vision of green fields and buttercups 



Hydrophi- .,. 



Hdce. will come some fluttering wings, and 



a dainty-looking dark-brown butterfly 

 with buff-colored margins, and a row of pale-blue 

 spots inside those margins but too small to be no- 

 ticeable at this distance, sits down on the opposite 

 bank to sun itself beside the stream. The but- 

 terfly that our English friends call the Camber- 

 well Beauty Vanessa Antiopa has come to 

 look after our dredging. This creature flaps over 

 our back-yards the last of February, and instead 

 of appearing " with ragged and faded wings," as 

 Harris says that this Vanessa does at the East, 

 it here often looks as fresh and new as if just 

 made. 



One day I heard a sad tale about this Vanessa 

 from two young sinners of twelve years old or so 

 that I found enjoying a solitary cigarette between 



