igo NATURE STUDY. 



Before night, a water-tiger came along, sometimes swim- 

 ming, and sometimes crawling about in the mud and sand. 

 A water-tiger is almost always hungry, for he grows fast, 

 and the faster he grows the hungrier he is. He was a 

 long, lean, savage fellow, with six legs and a big pair of 

 jaws. He found the eggs, and ate all he could of them. 

 He ate so many that for once in his life he was not hun- 

 gry ; so he found a snug place under the bank, curled up 

 and went to .sleep. When he awoke, he was not a water- 

 tiger, but a big, shiny black beetle. Such a change hap- 

 pens very often in the water, and the people who live there 

 think nothing of it. 



At dusk, some horn-pouts came up the brook from the 

 lake, trying, with their slender "feelers," to find some- 

 thing good to eat. The water was so shallow over the 

 sand that the big horn-pouts did not try to go there, but 

 the little ones found the eggs, and had a great treat. They 

 ate nearly all the eggs that were still clinging together in 

 masses, but as they greedily crowded and_pushed one an- 

 other about, they accidentally covered some of the eggs 

 with sand and lost them. 



Pike began to grow in one of these eggs. It had been a 

 narrow escape for him, but he had narrow escapes nearly 

 every day of his life. It is the way with creatures that 

 live in the water. At first, there came to be a thin, nar- 

 row, black .streak in the egg. In about five days, the 

 streak began to look as if it was going to be something, but 

 it did not look at all like a fish. In two days more. 

 Pike's heart began to beat, and it kept on beating until 

 one fine day man}^ years after. Two pairs of fins began to 

 grow very fast'. 



In twelve days. Pike was hatched. He wriggled his 

 way out of the sand, and rose to the surface. He now 

 looked like some kind of a fish, but not like a pickerel. 

 His head was large and round, and his fins were big and 



