The above facts, first made known by Lyonnet, have been confirmed by subsequent observers, such as Miger, and the pupa of another and much smaller water-beetle is now known to support itself in the same manner, or, rather, on the same principle, since the place of hooks at either extremity is taken by spiny projections, with which the back is covered. Lyonnet now turned his attention to the mature beetle, and especially to the female, whom he was anxious to see make her cocoon. Having put a few in a large wooden trough and supplied them with some floating weed, “I had,” he says, “before long, the pleasure of seeing the female _Hydrophilus_ betake herself to work under my eyes. I found, to my surprise, that, like the spider, she had her spinneret at the hinder end of the body. Two small brown prominences enclosed each a delicate conical tube, from each of which a separate thread proceeded, and with these the cocoon was woven in the following way. At first, lying upside-down near the surface of the water, the beetle buried the hinder part of her body, and the two hindermost pairs of legs, in the weed, whilst with the first pair, which were free, she drew and pressed the weed around the end of her body, moulding it to its shape. She then began to weave what seemed the under half of her cocoon, but having finished this part she turned over with it so that it became the upper half, and then wove the real under one. The two curved surfaces were then woven together, and in about an hour and a quarter the body of the cocoon was finished. For about two hours after this the beetle remained still, her back being uppermost. At first her body was buried in the cocoon up to the thorax, but one could see that she was gradually withdrawing it. During these two hours of apparent rest she laid her eggs, not at hazard, but in regular order, side by side, the pointed ends uppermost. This work accomplished, she closed the mouth of the cocoon, and then began to spin the little mast, which gradually rose above the surface of the water till it had attained the requisite height, and the cocoon was then finished.”[143]