THE MARGINED WATER BEETLE. 77 



occasionally dropping down upon a struggling tadpole 

 or young Stickleback, which has strayed rather too soon 

 from under the paternal eye, his own bulk and strong 

 armour rendering him all the while perfectly indif- 

 ferent as to the view the other inhabitants of his little 

 world may take of his proceedings. And to make 

 sure of the continuance of this state of felicity, to 

 avoid all chance of our friend finding himself some 

 fine morning floundering about in the mud, with a 

 disagreeably hot sun aggravating the necessary hard- 

 ship of his being deprived of his bath, nature has 

 kindly provided him with a pair of ample wings, upon 

 which he can start off at any time to seek his fortune 

 in another place. He generally selects the night for 

 these migrations, and indeed is exceedingly partial to 

 nocturnal excursions in the regions of the air, though 

 for what particular purpose it is impossible to say, 

 unless, as we often observe to be the case in a higher 

 animal, the great ease of his circumstances begets a 

 habit of raking. Certain it is that our friend the 

 Dyticus is a most inveterate rake, and his fondness 

 for nocturnal expeditions frequently brings him into 

 trouble ; he appears to have an insuperable objection 

 to being seen on the wing, and therefore as soon as 

 the day begins to break, plunges into the first water 

 he sees, a practice which readily accounts for his 

 being often found in water-butts, or even in the still 

 more ignominious durance of a puddle. Occasionally 

 also he has been known to mistake the glass of a 

 greenhouse for water, and by dashing heedlessly down 

 upon it commit an involuntary suicide. 



The larva of Dyticus is as voracious as the perfect 

 insect, but here all resemblance between them ceases. 

 The beetle, as may be gathered from the description 



