The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-03-19
THE GREAT WATER BEETLE.

THE GREAT WATER BEETLE.
 A good many betles live in the water and I should like to tell you some thing about one which is very common in almost every weedy pond. It is call- ed the Great Water Beetle, and if ever you should catch it you may know it at once, for it has broad yellow band all round the middle part of it's body and another one down the outer edge of each wing case, while in general color it is brown above and dull yellow beneath. It is about an inch and a quarter in length.
 This betle is interesting for several reasons. In the first place, 1t is a very good swimmer. Its body is really a kind of boat, and it dows itself through the water by means of it's hind legs, which are made just like oars. They are very long, very broad, very flat, and good deal curved, while all along their inner edges runs a row of stiff bristles, placed so closely side by side that water cannot pass be- tween them. If you watch great water beetle swimming you will mo- tice that i1e uses these legs just as a rower uses his oars; and they are fastened to his body in such a way that, as he brings them forward after making d stroke, they turn sidewise, so that their sharp edges may cut ontt, ,o lar md off as little resistance to it as possible. A water beetle feathers" his legs, in fact, just as human rower feathers his oars"
 Of course. these legs are not of very much use for walking; but as the beetle never comes on dry land, that does not mater If you want to play a little trick upon the bettle, however, the way to do it is to lay him on his back in the middle of saucer. He tries very hard to turn over, but his swimming legs cannot take any hold of the slippery plate, and the only re- suit of his struggles is to set him spin ming round and round faster and faster till at last you cannot see the bettle at all The only thing that you can Gee is a brown blur in the middle of the saucer and I should think that the poor beetle must get dreadfully glddy.
 Then, in the second place, this beetle can dive very well. I don't merely mean that it can swim under water mean that it can stop under water for very long time, although Il breathes air just as you and I do In deed, 1t can easily remain under water for an hour or even an hour and a 1alf. The fact is, that it is able tC carry down a good deal of air with it If you look at the bettle sidewise you will notice that its wings cases are 8 good deal arched and if you were tC lift them up you would find that its body underneath them was good deal hollowed. The consequence is. oi course, that good deal of space is ' left between the two. Now this space serves as a sort of air cistern, an6 just before it dives the bettle fills il iwth fresh air. So when it is under water it can beath quite easily unti this supply of air is all used up.
 Then, in the third place, this beetle can fly very well, Underneath it's wins cases 1t has pair of broad anC powerful wings, and almost every night it leaves the pond and goes fol a good lonf flight in their air Ant when it wants to return to the wate, i it does so in a very odd awy. Instead O flying down to the edge and ther crowling in, it hovers at neigh above the surface and suddenly fold its wings, so that l. drops into the wa
 ter with a splash
 Only sometimes 1t makes a rathe
 odd mistake. Flying over a green house on moonlight night, it sec f the moonbeams glittering on the glas
 roof, and mistakes it for water. So i folds it's wings and drops, often witt such force that for some littletime i is completely stunned by the fall.-
 By the Rev, Theodore Wood, in Lon
 don Tribune