104 
LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
water, but I waited patiently, quiet and motionless, 
a long time, taking care not to stir hand or foot. 
At length, one of them, taking courage, raised his 
head and half of his body out of water, sitting 
up, as it were, and resting on the toes of his fore- 
feet, and thus uttered the piercing shriek, which 
had a kind of cracked or ringing sound, somewhat 
like that of a penny trumpet. When about to cry, 
he first fluttered the skin of the throat a few times, 
then suddenly inflated it, till it was like a blown 
bladder, perfectly round, as big as his head, which 
continued so all the time of the shriek, about four 
or five seconds. I saw him do it many times close 
to my feet : it was a very singular sight. The skin 
of the throat seemed, when thus inflated, like a 
thin transparent membrane. 
I had always supposed that the food of the Lady- 
birds [CoGcinelladcE) was wholly confined to the 
different species of Plant-lice [Avliides)^ or at 
least to insects. "We have a large species common 
here, which is yellow, with seven black spots on 
each elytron, and six on the thorax [Coccmella 
horealis)^ and I frequently find this species, some- 
times congregated in groups amounting to a dozen, 
and sometimes single individuals, on the leaves 
of the water-melon [Cucurbita citriillus)^ on which 
they feed, gnawing ragged holes on the surface of 
the leaf, not at the edge. 
The logs of which the school-house is built, 
being dry, the bark of course is loose and easily 
separable : on pulling it off, we see some curious 
little insects [Lepisma)^ which, on being exposed, 
run very swiftly, endeavouring to hide themselves 
from the light. They have no wings in any of 
their stages, being one of the few genera of true 
