70 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



the flower-pot. He was probably aiming at the 

 hole in the bottom of the flower-pot, but I stopped 

 that up immediately. 



Having thus learned that these larvae could dig, 

 I went indignantly back to the Conqueror and 

 dumped the earth in on that impostor. He was 

 lying facing the west, but I gave him no time to 

 assume a more orthodox position. A person that 

 would tell as many lies as the Conqueror did has 

 nothing to do with orthodoxy anyway. The Con- 

 queror was like all the rest of us. He preferred 

 to have some one else do his digging for him. The 

 more I study bugs, the more do I perceive the 

 resemblances between them and human beings. 

 Nevertheless I did not relish being appointed Sex- 

 ton of the Graveyard of Beetles. 



My record of the Conqueror for the next few 

 days is that he arose from his grave mornings, 

 and was promptly buried again by the Sexton. I 

 know not the number of times, but at last the 

 Conqueror took up his residence under a tin lid 

 and refused to stay buried at all. 



The proper way for these larvae to do is to 

 make round cells for themselves in the ground. I 

 dug down to see one of my larvae that had been 

 buried about a week and found him in quite a 

 finely made cell that he had hollowed out. He 

 was indignant at my intrusion, however, and I 

 withdrew. He was the same larva of Yeast-Pow- 

 der-Lid Lake that had informed me of the base- 



