AQUABIUV- 



was amputated Jowf timea, and as often renewed. Dum&ol, 

 the French anatomist, played a still more cruel trick with 

 nature. He cut off three-fourths of the head of one of these 

 creatures with a pair of scissors. It was placed in a tank by 

 itself, and actually existed for three months without a head. Even 

 at the expiration of that time it was killed by neglect. It is 

 to be seen to this day in the Paris Museum. Who, after this, 

 will deny that the newt is a most singular creature ? He will 

 devour his own brother with a relish ; can grow new limbs 

 with as much facility as a plant s6nds out new brandies; and 

 treats decapitation as a joke. 



The little water-newt is found in the same ditch as his big 

 brother. Except that it is about half the size of the latter, it 

 is the same-looking creature. 



Should the reader be inclined to add Spiders apd Beetles to 

 his aquatic menagerie, he has a tolerably large field to choose 

 from. There is the diving-spider. 

 This curious creature weaves its net 

 under water, attaching the stays of 

 it to the leaves and stems of the 

 water-plants ; it, moreover, spins for 

 itself a sort of tent shaped like half 

 a pigeon's egg. In this cell it lurks, 

 waiting for a victim to be taken in 

 its net, when it speedily disentangles 

 it, and carries it in doors to devour 

 at its leisure. Although an aquatic 

 insect, the diving-spider seems to 

 require more air than water alone 

 affords. To meet this emergency, 

 nature has provided .it with 

 marvellous apparatus. Its abdo- 

 men and the surroTinding parts are covered with a sort of 

 second skin, and between the walls is stowed a stock of fresh 

 air for the spider's use when it is submerged. When in- 

 flated with air, the insect bears the appearance of carrying on 

 its back a globule of quicksilver. If closely watched, it may 

 be seen frequently to approach the surface of the water, and 

 by a peculiar movement of its teat-like appendage to replenish 

 its air-reservoirs. The chief drawback to the diving-spider's 

 admittance to the tank is, that fish of all kinds evince a decided 

 partiality for it ; and however well its nimbleness might serve 

 it did it have but one enemy to elude, when it is surrounded 



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THE WATEB-BFIDEB. 



