EVENINGS AT THE MICROSCOPE 



there by the tail with its pair of hind- legs stuck out on 

 each side at right angles; the redoubtable monster which 

 little boys who bathe hold in such salutary awe under the 

 name of Toe- biter. We have turned the tables upon the 

 warrior, and have bitten his toe off, and here it is. This 

 is the tarsus of one of the fore limbs. 



The peculiarity that first strikes us is that the first three 



FOOT OP WATER-BEETLE. 



a, large sucker; 66, two smaller suckers; 

 c, small crowded suckers. 



One of the last more 

 enlarged. 



joints are as it were fused into one, and dilated so as to 

 make a large roundish plate. The under surface of this 

 broad plate is covered with a remarkable array of sucking 

 disks, of which one is very large, occupying about a fourth 

 part of the whole area. It is circular, and its face is 

 strongly marked with numerous fibres radiating from the 

 centre. Near this you perceive two others of similar form 



