36 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



what was inside of such an egg, opened it before 

 the proper time, his curiosity was disappointed 

 by finding only some little, yellow, oblong specks. 

 The eggs often hatched in about thirty days from 

 the time of laying. There issued from the first 

 egg that appeared in the Hydropliilidce bottle 

 a number of queer, wriggling larvae, about one 

 eighth of an inch long. 



And as children will show what their parents 

 were, so these lively larvae soon let out the secret 

 that the black beetles had not by any means 

 always pursued the noiseless tenor of their way, 

 satisfied with water-weeds and an occasional nib- 

 ble at a departed earth-worm. The family traits 

 showed themselves, and the Hydrophilidce stood 

 convicted of no less a crime than murder. No 

 vegetable diet was sufficient for the appetites of 

 these little squirming larvae, that, 

 with their branching pincers pro- 

 jecting from either side of their 

 heads, wandered around the surface 

 Larvae of Cah- o fa e water, occasionally meeting 



forma Hydrophi- 

 lidce. and bunting into each other, inter- 

 locking horns like a couple of inimical goats. 



Those little black worms that have a habit, 

 when confined in bottles, of inching up the sides 

 of the glass until above the water, had great 

 enemies in these larvae. These worms are the 

 larvae of a variety of gnat, and their pupae, in- 

 stead of being lively, like the " tumblers " of or- 



