WATER-BABIES 



husk splits along the back, the limbs are pulled 

 out of their sheaths, and the gnat comes forth, 

 not without risk and difficulty. It rests for a short 

 time, standing on its own husk, and then flies off 

 into a very different world. The whole period of 

 development is about a month, and there may be 

 many successive broods. Every one knows how 

 fond the females are of blood ; the males feed 

 daintily on nectar, if they feed at all, and spend 

 most of their short life in aerial dances. 



When we peer into the pools where the young 

 gnats live we get a picture of the abundance of 

 life, especially in the spring-time. It is an impres- 

 sion for a lifetime to go into a fish-hatchery and 

 see the rows of rocking cradles in which the young 

 fry are swarming, perhaps a hundred thousand in 

 one box. But from many different sides we get 

 the same picture thousands of tadpoles in the 

 ditch, countless swarms of grubs and caterpillars 

 on land, clouds of mosquitoes and midges rising 

 from the marshes, hundreds of seedlings from one 

 oak tree, an innumerable army of lemmings muster- 

 ing in the valleys of the Tundra. Life is like an 

 inexhaustible fountain a spring. 



17 



