WATER-TIGERS. 63 



The larvae of the Hydrophilidoe and those of 

 the Water-tigers are much alike, when both are 

 half -grown, and the would-be " bug-sharp " will 

 suffer many things and be often distracted by re- 

 semblances while learning to distinguish the one 

 from the other. At times the indignant stu- 

 dent will be ready to rashly affirm that the only 

 way of telling the two apart is to wait till they 

 transform to beetles, and if a HydropJiilidce 

 beetle comes forth, then the larva was of that 

 family, and vice versa. And as, under the care of 

 an amateur, most of the larvae die before reaching 

 maturity, any one can see that this experimental 

 method of discovering the difference between the 

 larvae is not very satisfactory. One may know 

 them apart, however, by the more clumsy form 

 of the HydropJiilidce larvae, and by their dark, 

 thick-looking skin and toothed mandibles. Ver 



o 



assassin, the people of Europe call the larva of 

 their Hydrophilus piceus, and certainly no one 

 could tell the larvae of the two families apart by 

 reference to ferocity, for, if one family are assas- 

 sins, so are the other. 



In mid -April, as one drags the Water -tiger 

 larvae from their hidden nooks under the grass 

 that dips into the stream, a flash of vivid yellow 

 comes by, and one admiringly watches the first 

 Colias butterfly of the season flit on black-bor- 

 dered wings over the fields that are yellow as 

 itself with the hosts of buttercups and the fewer 



