194 



pair of oars, in search of animalcules, and tlie moment 

 the liojhts are out, turns head over heels, riohts him- 

 self, and opening a pair of handsome wings, starts to 

 fly about the dark room in company with his friend 

 the water-beetle, and (I suspect) catch flies ; and 

 then slips back demurely into the water with the 

 first streak of dawn. But perhaps the most interest- 

 ing of all the tribes of the !N"aiads, — (in default, of 

 course, of those semi-human nymphs wdth which our 

 Teutonic forefathers, like the Greeks, peopled each 

 "sacred fountain,") — are the little "water-crickets," 

 w^hich may be found running under the pebbles, or 

 burrowing in little galleries in the banks : and those 

 " caddises," which crawl on the bottom in the stiller 

 waters, inclosed, all save the head and legs, in a tube 

 of sand or pebbles, shells or sticks, green or dead 

 weeds, often arranged with quaint symmetry, or of 

 very graceful shape. Their aspect in this state may 

 be somewhat unin^dting, but they compensate for 

 their youthful ugliness by the strangeness of their 

 transformations, and often by the delicate beauty of 

 the perfect insects, as the "caddises," rising to the 



