One of the most common little creatures that was caught in this trap, was the _Tardigrada_, or water bear. He looks like a tiny cub, but unlike his great namesake, he has eight legs, and he frequently slips out of his old skin and comes out in a new suit. I often find them crawling in a forest of these plants, peering out of a thick jungle--now ascending a branch and out on a limb, holding fast with their long claws, and apparently looking around to see what they can find. Now one seems to be attracted to this elegant glassy cluster of _Utricularia_. At all events he is soon pushing his head among the delicate stems, then stops a moment, standing perfectly still as if listening. Perhaps he hears the groans of his dying comrades, but all unheeding the warning, he steps forward, touches the fatal spring, when in he goes to perish with his comrades. [Illustration: FIG. 3. CHIRONOMUS LARVA: BACK VIEW WITH FEET DRAWN IN AND JAWS CLOSED; SIDE VIEW WITH FEET EXTENDED AND JAWS CLOSED.] Young microscopists may like to know that the _Utricularia_ can be preserved in the house a long time by putting the stems or sprays in an open, shallow dish of water where they will grow readily. I have kept the plants months together in a large glass dish where they looked charmingly beautiful and were the admiration of all who saw them. It is very interesting to watch their growth. The ends of the growing sprays unroll like ferns, and with a magnifying glass you can see the development of the little bladders, and you may make discoveries--who knows? I know that for a long time it was a mystery to me how the bladders captured and imprisoned the little animals. Every day I saw they were entrapped and never escaped, and I studied and pondered over the matter a long time, and was so interested and determined to learn the secret that I spent night after night looking through the microscope, watching the strange, unwary creatures fall into the trap.