A Week Spent In A Glass Pond By The Great Water-Beetle

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Title:     A Week Spent In A Glass Pond By The Great Water-Beetle
Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing [More Titles by Ewing]

Very few beetles have ever seen a Glass Pond. I once spent a week in one, and though I think, with good management, and in society suitably selected, it may be a comfortable home enough, I advise my water-neighbours to be content with the pond in the wood.

The story of my brief sojourn in the Glass Pond is a story with a moral, and it concerns two large classes of my fellow-creatures: those who live in ponds and--those who don't. If I do not tell it, no one else will. Those connected with it who belong to the second class (namely, Francis, Molly, and the learned Doctor, their grandfather) will not, I am sure. And as to the rest of us, there is none left but--

However, that is the end of my tale, not the beginning.

The beginning, as far as I am concerned, was in the Pond. It is very difficult to describe a pond to people who cannot live under water, just as I found it next door to impossible to make a minnow I knew believe in dry land. He said, at last, that perhaps there might be some little space beyond the pond in hot weather, when the water was low; and that was the utmost that he would allow. But of all cold-blooded unconvinceable creatures, the most obstinate are fish.

Men are very different. They do not refuse to believe what lies beyond their personal experience. I respected the learned Doctor, and was really sorry for the disadvantages under which he laboured. That a creature of his intelligence should have only two eyes, and those not even compound ones--that he should not be able to see under water or in the dark--that he should not only have nothing like six legs, but be quite without wings, so that he could not even fly out of his own window for a turn in the air on a summer's evening--these drawbacks made me quite sorry for him; for he had none of the minnow's complacent ignorance. He knew my advantages as well as I knew them myself, and bore me no ill-will for them.

"The _Dyticus marginalis_, or Great Water-Beetle," I have heard him say, in the handsomest manner, "is equally at home in the air, or in the water. Like all insects in the perfect state, it has six legs, of which the hindmost pair are of great strength, and fringed so as to serve as paddles. It has very powerful wings, and, with Shakespeare's witches, it flies by night. It has two simple, and two sets of compound eyes. When it goes below water, it carries a stock of air with it, on the diving-bell principle; and when this is exhausted, comes to the surface, tail uppermost, for a fresh supply. It is the most voracious of the carnivorous water-beetles."

The last sentence is rather an unkind reflection on my good appetite, but otherwise the Doctor spoke handsomely of me, and without envy.

And yet I am sure it could have been no matter of wonder if my compound eyes, for instance, had been a very sore subject with a man who knew of them, and whose one simple pair were so nearly worn out.

More than once, when I have seen the old gentleman put a green shade on to his reading-lamp, and glasses before his eyes, I have felt inclined to hum,--"Ah, my dear Doctor, if you could only take a cool turn in the pond! You would want no glasses or green shades, where the light comes tenderly subdued through water and water-weeds."

Indeed, after living, as I can, in all three--water, dry land, and air,--I certainly prefer to be under water. Any one whose appetite is as keen, and whose hind-legs are as powerful as mine, will understand the delights of hunting, and being hunted, in a pond; where the light comes down in fitful rays and reflections through the water, and gleams among the hanging roots of the frog-bit, and the fading leaves of the water-starwort, through the maze of which, in and out, hither and thither, you pursue, and are pursued, in cool and skilful chase, by a mixed company of your neighbours, who dart, and shoot, and dive, and come and go, and any one of whom at any moment may either eat you or be eaten by you.

And if you want peace and quiet, where can one bury oneself so safely and completely as in the mud? A state of existence, without mud at the bottom, must be a life without repose.

I was in the mud one day, head downwards, when human voices came to me through the water. It was summer, and the pond was low at the time.

"Oh, Francis! Francis! The Water-Soldier[D] is in flower."

"Hooray! Dig him up for the aquarium! Grandfather says it's very rare--doesn't he?"

"He says it's not at all common; and there's only one, Francis. It would be a pity if we didn't get it up by the roots, and it died."

"Nonsense, Molly. I'll get it up. But let's get the beasts first. You get the pickle-jar ready, whilst I fix the stick on to the colander."

"Does cook know you've taken it, Francis?"

"By this time she does, I should think. Look here, Molly--I wish you would try and get this stick right. It wants driving through the handles. I'm just going to have a look at the Water-Soldier."

"You always give me the work to do," Molly complained; and as she spoke, I climbed up an old stake that was firmly planted in the mud, and seated myself on the top, which stood out of the water, and looked at her.

She was a neat-looking little soul, with rosy cheeks, and a resolute expression of countenance. She looked redder and firmer than usual as she drove the broomstick through the handles of the colander, whilst the boy was at the other side of the pond with the Water-Soldier, whose maiden-blossom shone white among its sword-leaves.

It shone in the sunshine which came gaily through a gap in the trees, and warmed my coat through to my wings, and made the pond look lovely. That greedy _Ranatra_, who eats so much, and never looks a bit the more solid for his meals, crept up a reed and sunned his wings; the water-gnats skimmed and skated about, measuring the surface of the water with their long legs; the "boatmen" shot up and down till one was quite giddy, showing the white on their bodies, like swallows wheeling for their autumn-flight. Even the water-scorpion moved slowly over a sunny place from the roots of an arrow-head lily to a dark corner under the duck-weed.

"Molly!" shouted the boy; "I wish you'd come and give a pull at the Water-Soldier. I've nearly got him up; but the leaves cut my hands, and you've got gloves. If the colander is ready, I'll begin to fish. There's a beetle on that stick. I wish I were near enough, I could snatch him up like anything."

"I wouldn't advise you to," said Molly. "Grandfather says that water-beetles have got daggers in their tails. Besides, some of the beetles are very greedy and eat the fish."

"The Big Black one doesn't," said Francis. "He said so. _Hydroeus piceus_ is the name, and I dare say that's the one. It's the biggest of all the water-beetles and very harmless."

"He _may_ be a good one," said Molly, looking thoughtfully and unmistakably at me, "but then he may be one of the bad ones; and if he is, he'll eat everything before him."

But by this time Francis was dipping the colander in and out on the opposite side, and she was left to struggle with the Water-Soldier.

"He's up at last," she announced, and the Soldier was landed on the bank.

"Come round," said the boy; "I've filled three jars."

"I hope you've been careful, Francis. You know Grandfather says that to stock a fresh-water aquarium is like the puzzle of the Fox and the Geese and the bag of seed. It's no use our having things that eat each other."

"They must eat something," said the boy; "they're used to it at home; and I wish you wouldn't be always cramming Grandfather down my throat. I want to do my aquarium my own way; and I gave most towards buying the bell-glass, so it's more mine than yours."

"Well, do as you like; only let us have plenty of water-boatmen," said Molly.

"I've got half-a-dozen at least; and the last sweep I went very low, quite in the mud, and I've got some most horrid things. There's one of them like a flat-iron, with pincers at the point."

"That's a water-scorpion. Oh, Francis! he eats dreadfully."

"I don't believe he can, he's so flat. Molly, is that nasty-looking thing a dragon-fly larva?"

"I believe it is; for there is the mask. You know his face is so ugly nothing would come near him if he didn't wear a mask. Then he lifts it up and snaps suddenly; _he_ really _does_ eat everything!"

"Well, I can't help it. I must have him. I want to see him hatch; and I shall plant a bullrush for him to climb up."

"I found a caddis-worm, with a beautifully built house, in the roots of the Water-Soldier, and I'm going to look along the edge for some shells. We must have shell-fish, you know, to keep the aquarium clean. Oh!"

"What is it, Molly? What have you found?"

"Oh, such a lovely spider! A water-spider--a scarlet spider. He's very small, but such a colour! Francis dear, may I keep him all to myself? I don't think I _can_ let him go in with the others. If the dragon-fly larva ate him, I should never forgive myself, and you know you don't know for certain that the beetle is _Hydroeus piceus_. I shall give him an aquarium of his very own in a green finger-glass, with nothing but a little very nice duckweed, and one small snail to keep it clean, like a general servant. May I, Francis?"

"By all means. I don't want your scarlet spider. I can get lots more." He went on dipping with the colander, and she began to dig up water-plants and lay them in a heap. I sat and watched them, but the _Ranatra_ got nervous and tried to go below. As usual, the dry bristles in his tail would not pierce the water without a struggle, and after floundering in the most ludicrous fashion for a few minutes, he fell straight into the colander, and was put into one of the pickle-jars.

"I've got enough now," said the boy, "and I want to go home and see about my net. I must have some fish. Can you carry the plants, Molly?"

"I'll manage," said Molly. "Now I'm ready."

"Wait a minute, though--I'd forgotten the beetle."

When I heard this I dropped into the water; but somehow or other I turned over very clumsily, and, like the _Ranatra_, I fell through into the colander, and was transferred to a pickle-jar.

Anything more disagreeable than being shaken up in a glass bottle, with beetles, and boatmen, and larvae of all sorts and sizes, including a dragon-fly in the second stage of his career, I can hardly imagine. When they took us out and put us into the glass pond, matters were certainly better, though there is a vast difference between a glass pond and a pond in a wood.

The first day it was by no means a bad imitation of a real pond, except for the want of a bed of mud. Molly had covered the bottom of the glass with gravel which she had steadily washed till water would run clear from it, in spite of the impatient exclamations of Francis, that it "would do now," and quite regardless of the inconvenience to which I was subjected by being kept in the pickle-jar. In this gravel she had embedded the roots of some Water Crowfoot and other pond-plants. The stones in the middle were nicely arranged, and well covered with moss and water-weeds. When water had been poured in up to the brim of the bell-glass, and we had been emptied out of the jars, the dragon-fly larva got into a good hole among the stones and ate most of the May-fly grubs, water-shrimps, and so forth, as they came into sight. I did not do badly myself, and only the bigger and stronger members of our society and a few skins were there next day, when Francis brought a jar full of minnows, a small carp, and a bull's-head, and turned them out in our midst.

"How they dart and swim round and round!" he exclaimed.

"Splendid," said Molly. "I _am_ so sorry I am going away just now. You will try and keep the water fresh, won't you?"

"Of course I will. And let me have the scarlet spider whilst you are away. I couldn't find another."

"Well, if you must; but do take care, Francis. And here are the two bits of gutta-percha tubing to make into syphons. You must put them into hot water for a minute before you bend them, you know."

"I'll do it to-morrow, Molly; I have nothing else _to_ do, you know, because Edward Brown won't be back for three or four days. So we can do nothing about the cricket club."

It was on the third day, when both the pieces of gutta-percha tubing were in a wash-hand basin of hot water, and the dragon-fly larva and I were finishing a minnow, with the help of the water-scorpion, that Master Edward Brown arrived unexpectedly, and so pressed his friend Francis to come out and consult "just for two minutes," and so delayed him when he got him, that the tubing melted into a shapeless lump, and the carp died unnoticed by any one but myself.

On the fourth day the glass pond was moved into the conservatory, "to be out of the way." The fish were excellent eating, and though the snails were at their wits' end as the refuse rotted, and the water became more stagnant, and the weeds grew, till all the shell-fish in the pond could not have kept the place clean,--I did not mind it myself. As the water got low, I found a nice bit of rockwork above water, where I could sit by day, and at night the lights from the drawing-room gave an indescribable stimulus to my wings, and I sailed in, and flew round and round till I was tired, and (forgetting that no pond, not even a bed of mud, was below me!) drew in my wings, and dropped sharply down on to the floor. To do the family justice, they learned to know the sound of my fall, and even the old Doctor himself would go down on hands and knees to hunt for me under the sofa, for fear I should be trodden on.

On the fifth day I swallowed the scarlet spider. I hated myself for doing it, when I thought of Molly; but the spider was very foolish to meet me. He should have kept behind. And if I hadn't eaten him, the dragon-fly larva would. What _he_ had eaten, I do not think he could have told himself. There was very little left now for any one; even the water-scorpion had disappeared.

On the sixth day the glass pond had only two tenants worth speaking of--the dragon-fly larva and myself. We had both over-eaten ourselves, and for some hours we moved slowly about through the thickening puddle, nodding civilly when we passed each other among the feathery sprays of the Water Crowfoot. Then I began to get hungry. I knew it by feeling an impulse to look out for the dragon-fly larva, and I knew he knew it because he began to avoid me.

On the seventh day Molly ran into the conservatory, followed by her brother, and uttered a cry of dismay.

"Oh, what a state it's in! Where are the syphons?"

"Why, they melted the day Edward Brown came back. We've been having such a lot of cricket, Molly!"

"There isn't a fish left, and it smells horribly."

"I'm very sorry, Molly. Let's throw it out. I don't want Grandfather to see it. Let me come."

"No, no, Francis! There may be some left. Yes, there's the beetle. I shall put it all in a pail and take it back to the pond. Oh dear! oh dear! I can't see anything of the scarlet spider. My beautiful scarlet spider! I was so fond of him. Oh, I am so sorry! And no one has watered the Soldier, and he's dead too."

"Don't cry, Molly! Please don't cry! I dare say the spider is there, only it's so small."

For some time Molly poked carefully here and there, but the spider was not to be found, and the contents of the aquarium were carried back to the wood.

I was very glad to see the pond again. The water-gnats were taking dimensions as usual, a blue-black beetle sat humming on the stake, and dragon-flies flitted hungrily about, like splinters of a broken rainbow; but the Water-Soldier's place was empty, and it was never refilled. He was the only specimen.

Molly was probably in the right when, after a last vain search for the scarlet spider, as Francis slowly emptied the pail, she said with a sigh,

"What makes me so very sorry is, that I don't think we ought to have 'collected' things unless we had really attended to them, and knew how to keep them alive."

 

FOOTNOTES:

Footnote D: Water-soldier--_Stratiotes aloides._ A handsome and rare plant, of aloe-like appearance, with a white blossom rising in the centre of its sword-leaves.

[The end]
Juliana Horatia Ewing's short story: A Week Spent In A Glass Pond By The Great Water-Beetle

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