152 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



is wiser than the saints. He intends to come out 

 some day while he is yet alive. 



On the twenty-second day after Corydalus was 

 found I looked into the flower-pot and was as- 

 tonished to perceive him sitting on top of the 

 earth. But, alas ! how changed he was in ap- 

 pearance. His body had shortened and he was 

 altogether discouraged-looking. All his fire and 

 wrath had left him. I poked him, but he did 

 not resist. Poor Corydalus ! His days were evi- 

 dently numbered. There was no prospect of his 

 ever coming out as a winged creature with a 

 couple of savage-looking mandibles in front. He 

 could not even become a pupa. 



He evidently came up on top of the earth to 

 die. He did die, and as he lay on the bottom of 

 the jelly-glass in which I placed him, he had con- 

 tracted so much that he looked like a dead larva 

 of one of the Dytiscidce. He was hardly an inch 

 long and his side-appendages did not show much 

 for they were drawn up against his body, and in 

 this respect the resemblance was more perfect. 



I kept him in the glass a number of days to 

 see if any internal parasite that might have been 

 preying on him would come forth. The wicked 

 Ichneumon-flies are said to prey even on Caddis- 

 worms, and I do not know why Corydalus might 

 not have been attacked some time when he chose 

 to walk out of the water. But no parasite ap- 

 peared, and I was somewhat at a loss to account 

 for his decease. 



