116 WHIRLWIGS AND BOATMEN. 



buffet the running stream, to glide, not with, but against 

 the current. This is known to naturalists as the Velia rivu- 

 lorum. 



A word, now, for that little whirling devil, which, albeit 

 black in hue, is of less satanic seeming than the above; for in 

 place of long rigid limbs and angular movements, he displays, 

 in his circular gyrations and oval form, something of beauty, 

 in his polished corslet, something of brightness, and in his 

 social sportiveness, something of good fellowship. He and 

 his merry mates, not the less destroyers, are the little Whirl- 

 wigs, 1 those bluish-black diamond-like Beetles, which few can 

 have failed to notice, whirling about on every pool. Their 

 playful evolutions would seem, however, but a passe-temps in 

 intervals of sterner business, that of putting a full and fatal 

 stop to the sports of other water-revellers, weaker than them- 

 selves. 



That topsy-turvy imp of darkness, which, in proportion to 

 its superior magnitude, creates yet greater ravages among his 

 fellows of the flood (those before named included) is the Water- 

 Boatman. 2 Swimming on his back, legs upwards, tail touch- 

 ing the surface, head inclined downwards, he waits, motionless, 

 on the look-out for prey, till, on the least alarm, he rows off 

 with infinite speed by help of the hairy fringe, with which his 

 hinder feet are thickly bordered. As well as with oars, our 

 boatman is provided with wings, useless in water ; but serving, 

 in case of drought, and failure, in consequence, of his native 

 element, as a means of transport to some new scene of violence. 



But these which appear upon the surface are only a few, 

 and not the most terrible amongst the devourers of pond and 

 streamlet, for gliding through the depths below, or lurking 

 crocodile-like, within the mud or water-weeds, a multitude of 

 fierce and frightful insects, some in a state of maturity, others 

 in progressive stages, live solely by destruction. One of these 



1 Gyrinus natator. 2 Notonecta glauca, orfurcata. 



