FIELD WORK ON COLEOPTERA. 63 



the queer happenings there. An occasional fly or moth 

 may fall into the water, and one of the diving beetles will 

 dart alongside and appropriate the unlucky insect for its 

 noonday meal . Across the surface of the water, in straight 

 lines, zigzags, or circles, go the whirligigs. After watch- 

 ing them for some time to see whether they swim in schools 

 or singly, whether they dive when nothing disturbs them, 

 and what they eat, it will make an interesting study to 

 make the attempt to get some of them into your pail. 

 If you succeed in capturing one, turn it on its back, and 

 you will be rewarded by seeing it put out its antennae and 

 work its oar-legs back and forth. Notice whether the 

 antennas are thread-like or clubbed or flattened on the 

 outer end. The two hind pairs of legs are short and very 

 much flattened and a little widened — excellent oars! 

 The front legs are longer and very slender, not good row- 

 ing instruments, but excellent "hands" to seize such food 

 as may come in their way. 



At night, when summer has really come, the flreflies 

 may be seen, at first rising out of the grass where they 

 have been during the day. The next morning a little 

 search of the place where you saw them rise the night 

 before, may reveal some of these fireflies down near the 

 ground. Are they eating or resting— sleeping ? When 

 flreflies first begin to appear in the summer a little patient 

 digging below the ground surface in the same region 

 may find some of the larvae, worm-Hke creatures. It is 

 supposed that both adults and larvae are carnivorous, 

 eating soft-bodied animals smaller than themselves. 



On the potato tops, search for the leaf-eating ten- 

 Uned potato beetle, with cream-colored body and ten 

 dark lines running length-wise of its elytra. A search 

 will surely reveal larvae, pupas, eggs, and adults in the 



