WATER-LIZARDS AND THEIR ILK. Ill 



complimentary title of " le Petit Diable." But I 

 fear these Frog-hoppers are to be classed among 

 the injurious insects. It is very well for them to 

 attack weeds by a brook, but the Frog-hoppers 

 need not pretend that they never visit anything 

 else. And many such creatures on cultivated 

 plants would kill them, as the people of the 

 Basses-Alpes could testify. For does not a Frog- 

 hopper, Jassus devastatans, make bold to hop 

 on their young corn and lay waste their cereals ? 

 Frog-hoppers are certainly bad creatures, not wor- 

 thy of our further consideration. Let us turn 

 from them to the subject of this chapter. 



The first morning after I caught the Water- 

 lizards, I thought one had escaped, for I went 

 to the dish and found but one in the water. 

 Further search, however, discovered Number Two 

 snugly hidden in the cloth that I had tied around 

 the dish the night before. He received the re- 

 ward of his wanderings in being obliged to hang 

 by one of his hind feet till I could cut a thread of 

 the cloth that had become wound around one of 

 his legs. His tiny little hand looked almost hu- 

 man as I held him during the operation. 



This adventure did not deter him from going 

 again and again into the cloth. I suppose he slept 

 there sometimes nights. It became *ny custom to 

 run my hand around the dish mornings before un- 

 tying the cloth, and I often felt his body lying 

 somewhere beneath. It gave me the sensation of 



