78 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



in a large pond which completely dried up in summer ; 

 . . . when I visited the pond . . . May 13, none were to 

 be found. It seems from this quite evident that the 

 animal probably dies off at the approach of warm 

 weather and does not reappear until after cool weather 

 sets in late in the autumn, being represented in the sum- 

 mer by the eggs alone; and thus the appearance and 

 disappearance of this Phyllopod is apparently deter- 

 mined mainly by the temperature." 



Bearing this in mind, I took several lumps of the 

 dried mud, last summer, and placed them in ice-water, 

 hoping to have the eggs, if there were any, hatch, and 

 80 puzzle the doctor with midsummer specimens, but 

 the plan did not work. Either I got no eggs with the 

 mud, or the water was too cold ; at any rate, my plan 

 was a failure, and, as it was intended to be a joke, de- 

 served no better fate. Returning to pure science, I 

 waded the waters of that upland pond faithfully until 

 it froze. I could find no specimens. Even in March 

 of '84 there were none to be seen ; and this year, 

 '85, they were apparently but a few days old, as late 

 as April 1. 



In an aquarium they are very beautiful, but must be 

 kept by themselves. A dozen were placed in a small 

 tank containing mud-minnows and sunfish. The latter 

 ate the beautiful fairies as though they were an ordinary 

 article of their diet ; but the mud-minnows would not 

 touch them. Later, I placed innumerable minute leeches 

 in the same tank, and these the minnows greedily de- 

 voured, but the sunfish ignored them completely. 



The fact that during the month of May nest-building 



