932 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VOL. XXXIII. 
to carry and also deprives him of the use of his wings, confining 
him to one pond. 
That the male chafes under the burden is unmistakable; in 
fact, my suspicions as to the sex of the egg-carrier were first 
aroused by watching one in an aquarium, which was trying to 
free itself from its load of eggs, an exhibition of a lack of 
maternal interest not to be expected in a female carrying her 
own eggs. Generally the Zaithas are very active, darting 
about with great rapidity; but an egg-bearer remains quietly 
clinging to a leaf with the end of the abdomen just out of the 
water. If attacked, he meekly receives the blows, seemingly 
preferring death, which in several cases was the result, to the 
indignity of carrying and caring for the eggs. 
At other times paternal instinct seems to predominate, for 
with the third pair of legs, which are covered with long hairs, 
he brushes the eggs carefully to free them from foreign par- 
ticles. Oftener, however, he vigorously kicks and pushes the 
eggs. In this way several of the males in my aquarium were 
successful in dislodging the eggs in a mass; then the hitherto 
meek, morbid Zaitha darted hither and thither with great 
rapidity, as if intent upon exhibiting to all the community his 
regained liberty. 
The female is a trifle larger in size than the male and has 
two small hairy papilla on the flap covering the genital arma- 
ture; these are the only external characters which distinguish 
her from the male. 
My observations indicate that the female is obliged to capture 
the male in order to deposit the eggs. Upon visiting the 
aquarium one afternoon a male was found to have a few eggs 
upon the caudal end of the wings. There was a marked differ- 
ence in the color of these, those nearest the head being yellow, 
while those nearest the caudal end were dark gray. The small 
number of the eggs indicated that the female had been inter- 
rupted in her egg-laying, and the difference in color of the 
eggs, that the process must be a slow one. 
For five hours I watched a silent, unremitting struggle 
between the male and the female. Her desire was evidently 
to capture him uninjured. She crept quietly to within a few 
