216 SALMONIA. \ EIGHTH DAY. 



year, would be quite an endless labour. Some of 

 them appear to live only a few hours, and none of 

 them, I believe, have their existence protracted to 

 more than a few days. In spring and autumn a new 

 variety of these flies sometimes appears every day, or 

 even in different parts of the same day. Of the 

 beetle, or coleoptera genus, there are many varieties 

 fed on by fishes. These insects, which are distin- 

 guished, as you know, by four wings, two husky-like 

 shells above, and two slender and finer ones below, 

 are bred from eggs, which they deposit in the ground, 

 or in the excrement of animals, and which, producing 

 larvae in the usual way, are converted into beetles, 

 and these larvae themselves are good bait for fish. 

 The brown beetle or cockchaffer, the fern-fly, and the 

 gray beetle, which are abundant in the meadows in 

 the summer, are often blown into the water, and are 

 the most common insects of this kind eaten by fishes. 

 Whether the ditisci and hydrophili, the water beetles, 

 are ever eaten by trout, I know not, but it is most 

 probable. These singular animals are most commonly 

 found in stagnant waters ; fitted for flying, swimming, 

 diving, and walking ; they are omnivorous, and 

 usually fly from pool to pool in the evening. They 

 deposit their eggs in the water, where their larvae 

 live, but which, to undergo transmutation into the 

 beetle, migrate to the land. But there is hardly an 



