MY WATER-LOVERS. 47 



ing held out in the air with the stiffness of a 

 Sphinx caterpillar, excepting that the Sphinx 

 holds out its head instead of its hinder portion. 

 Sometimes one of these saw-fly larvae curls its 

 tail up, instead, much as a cat might curl up hers. 

 This attitude is more striking than the other, if 

 anything, for it looks almost unnatural to see the 

 larva so twisted on the leaf. The larvae hold on, 

 during all their posings, by their fore feet. The 

 color of the creatures is grayish on top, with ten 

 double yellow marks on each side. 



What a queer variety there is in insects ! The 

 more one sees of them the more one wonders at 

 the marvellous diversity displayed in their appear- 

 ance and organization. Come here next month, 

 at the end of April, and, as you painfully pick 

 out the gradually fattening larvae of Hydrophili* 

 dee, there will come a middle-sized, brilliant red 

 dragon-fly whizzing almost into your very face. 

 You may now find the larvae of these insects, 

 looking much like big spiders. A little boy who 

 once saw one of them announced that it was a 

 " grasshopper," but I think that the resemblance 

 to a hairy spider is much more striking, the main 

 difference, as one glances at the larva, being that 

 a real spider has two more legs than this one. 

 These Iarva3, when disturbed, dig violently with 

 their fore feet as if they wished to cover them- 

 selves with mud. However the larvae are easily 

 kept if fed with earth-worms, and I have had one 



