WELCH] WATER INSECTS 139 



through a combination of the teacher's training and agricultural 

 departments and second through the agricultural departments 

 alone. Fifty-five per cent of those High Schools which have 

 a Teacher's Training Department have also a department of 

 agriculture, and in some of these schools the pupils who are 

 taking the training course are also taking courses in agriculture. 



Eleven of the schools receiving aid for agricultural instruc- 

 tion are graded schools and here agriculture is taught in the 

 seventh and eighth grades by the regular instructor. And in 

 some of the other High Schools the instructor gives aid in the 

 graded schools. 



The greatest stimulus to agricultural instruction in ele- 

 mentary schools will doubtless come from the Holenberg Act 

 passed by the last legislature, providing financial aid to encour- 

 age the consolidation of schools. In order to receive this aid 

 a school must be provided with a principal who is able to teach 

 agriculture, and must furnish not less than two acres to be 

 used for a demonstration plot. About thirty schools have taken 

 advantage of this opportunity. 



The Insect Life of Pond and Stream 



Paul S. Welch. 



University of Illinois. 



Part I. 



Ponds and streams of the usual kinds contain a wealth of 

 life which is often little suspected, and they are full of surprises 

 and interests for the youth who has a liking for the things of 

 nature. He is, no doubt, more or less familiar with a few of the 

 common-place insects of the fields, lawns, and gardens, but when 

 he examines carefully the neighboring brook or pond he will 

 find a little world which will give him new ideas of insect life. 

 Here is a bit of the great insect. world, distinct from that of field 

 and woodland, hemmed in by the banks and shores, and made up 

 of numbers of different kinds of insects in different stages of 

 development. It offers splendid chances for study since water 

 insects are easy to find, easy to collect, easy to keep alive and 

 easy to observe either in the pools and streams or in the aquarium. 



WHERE AND WHEX TO COLLECT. 



The young collector needs only to go to any pond, lagoon, 

 beach pool, swamp, marsh, brook or creek to find a suitable place 



