Lace-winged Fly. (Manner of depositing Eggs.)
"Have you ever seen those huge stag-beetles with long horny mandibles like stag's horns?" said Frank.
"Yes," replied Dick, "I caught one yesterday, and looked up all about it in my books. Its caterpillar takes four years to arrive at maturity, and it burrows in the wood of oak and willow trees. I showed the beetle I caught to our housekeeper, and she nearly went into hysterics over it. I tried to make her take it into her hand, and she said she would not have done so for 'worlds untold.'"
Stag-horned Prionus and Diamond Beetle.
Frank stooped down to wash his hands in a small pool of water by the road-side, and he cried—
"I say, do look here. Here is a living horsehair. Look at it swimming about. It ties itself into ever so many knots in a minute, and unties them again. Is it a hair-worm?"
"Yes, I have no doubt it is," said Jimmy. "Do you know that I expect that the common notion of eels being bred from horsehairs has arisen from country people seeing these long worms, and thinking they were horsehairs just come to life."