242 ITS FLIGHT, AND ITS FOOD. 



especially in the evening, noticed in the air ; for he 

 is furnished with ample wings, and can at pleasure 

 change his abode from one pool to another. In the 

 winter of 1830, we had here a very hard frost, which 

 lasted for several days, and the large ponds in our 

 Botanic Garden were completely frozen. The late 

 Mr. James Drummond, whose untimely death at 

 Cuba every Naturalist must regret, was at that time 

 the curator of the garden. I was informed by him, 

 that the very first day the ice was broken up by thaw, 

 he observed several of these water-beetles flying to 

 the pond, and plunging into the water. A Dyticus 

 which I kept in a glass vessel seized with avidity 

 any crumbs of bread that were thrown in, but I 

 could never observe that they were actually eaten. 

 It was not so with a piece of raw beef : for on it he 

 feasted with great apparent relish. By supplying 

 this description of food, Esper kept one alive in a 

 glass vessel three years and a half. There is, how- 

 ever, a kind of nutriment to which this insect 

 appears even more partial, and this, I regret to say, 

 is the smaller water-beetles, which it seizes and 

 greedily devours. In its larva state, the Dyticus 

 is equally formidable and rapacious ; and not con- 

 tent with destroying the lar\'8e of gnats, ephemera, 

 &c., will attack animals of larger dimensions. I 

 knew it on one occasion to seize a stickleback, and 



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