dytiscus

The large dytiscus beetle is the great enemy of small fish.

The Naturalist on the Thames 1882

It is a dytiscus beetle, whose compound eyes have mistaken the shine of the glass in the moonlight for the gleam of a pond.

The Naturalist on the Thames 1882

The great carnivorous water-beetle, the dytiscus, after catching and eating other creatures all day, with two-minute intervals to come up, poke the tips of its wings out of the water and jam some air against its spiracles, before descending once more to its subaqueous hunting-grounds, will rise by night from the surface of the Thames, lift again those horny wing-cases, unfold

The Naturalist on the Thames 1882

The larva not only of the carnivorous dytiscus but also of the vegetable-feeding water-beetle are ferocious and carnivorous, and deadly enemies of young fish and ova.

The Naturalist on the Thames 1882

The fish were too tame and easily caught, and their beauty of too civilized an order; the rare, flat, vicious dytiscus "took the cake."

Peter Ibbetson George Du Maurier 1865

There was M. le Major, in his green frock-coat, on his knees near a little hawthorn-tree by the brink, among the water-logged roots of which there dwelt a cunning old dytiscus as big as the bowl of a table-spoon -- a prize we had often tried to catch in vain.

Peter Ibbetson George Du Maurier 1865

And of all things in the world, we never tired of that walk through the avenue and park and Bois de Boulogne to the Mare d'Auteuil; strolling there leisurely on an early spring afternoon, just in time to spend a midsummer hour or two on its bank, and watch the old water-rat and the dytiscus and the tadpoles and newts, and see the frogs jump; and then walking home at dusk in the school-room of my old home; and then back to war, well-lighted "Magna sed Apta" by moonlight through the avenue on

Peter Ibbetson George Du Maurier 1865

One of these was put into a bowl with a dytiscus beetle, which, "pouncing upon him like a hawk upon an unsuspecting lark, drove its scythe-like horny jaws right into the back of the poor little fish.

The Naturalist on the Thames 1882