192 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



But I came to the conclusion that perhaps he 

 hardly knew the creatures after all. His face ex- 

 pressed a doubt of himself, although he asserted 

 that the snakes were in the other creek. He had 

 seen them there. Another boy with him volun- 

 teered the guess that they caught "fish and 

 things." 



In like manner did I hear a vague rumor from 

 one boy of a kind of bug, in the other creek, that 

 " had horns behind." Taking the peculiar de- 

 scription that the boy did his best to give me, I 

 should judge that he meant the kind of Water- 

 scorpions that bear breathing- tubes behind like 

 Ranatra. There are no such Scorpions in this 

 brook, I believe. In all my dredging I have 

 never found any of that tube-bearing variety, 

 Nepa, in this stream. Probably, from the pecu- 

 liar manner in which the scorpions of this brook 

 carry their eggs, the creatures belong to the genus 

 Belostoma. 



There is a great clump of the white -veined 

 thistle opposite the willows. There in a thistle- 

 leaf I once found the caterpillar of the butterfly 

 known as the " Painted Lady," Pyrameis carduL 

 The Lady preferred living alone, as all her folks 

 do. In one spiny leaf she had made a little web, 

 and an intruder had to break into her home to ex- 

 amine her, since she had drawn the two sides of 

 the leaf partly together. I bore the Lady home, 

 and heroically pricked my fingers many a time 



