42 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



morn 1 missed him on the accustomed " weed, 

 nor yet upon his stick nor iu the jar was he. 

 Had he fled ? The mosquito-bar over the mouth 

 of his jar showed no trace of his passage. Had 

 he departed this life ? Diligent search among the 

 debris in the bottom of his jar failed to bring 

 to light his corpse. The fate of the Devourer 

 will ever remain a mystery. Sufficient was it to 

 know that this second attempt at raising beetle 

 was a failure. There was, however, a rumor of the 

 assassination of the Devourer by water-shrimps. 



A great many books of reference speak of the 

 HydropMlidcB as entirely herbivorous when ma- 

 ture beetles. Dead flesh, however, hath charms 

 for some of these reputedly strict vegetarians. I 

 have seen one of these Hydrophttidce so interested 

 in a dead earth-worm that when his supply of air 

 became exhausted he would rush to the top of the 

 bottle, poke up his head, rush down again and go 

 straight to the worm and recommence the appar- 

 ent chewing off of little pieces of flesh. How- 

 ever, the HydropJiilidce get along very well when 

 shut up in a bottle with nothing but weeds, but 

 I believe that when at home in their native pools 

 they sometimes act as scavengers, not only in the 

 matter of decaying leaves but in that of dead flesh 

 as well. 



Professor Karl Semper, of the University of 

 Wiirzburg, in speaking of the food of animals, 

 mentions the European pond-snail, Lymncea stag- 



