10 THE ADVENTURES 



did I ponder, and wonder, and tremble in medita- 

 ting over this strange event. It was to me a 

 complete mystery, and long remained so, nor 

 am I quite sure that I even now fully understand 

 it. For some time after this affair I carefully 

 eschewed all glittering beetles ; and it was long 

 before I again rose boldly and unhesitatingly at 

 the fly at all ; but hunger has no law ; and find- 

 ing, after sundry tremulous and hesitating 

 essays, that I might still feed securely as before, 

 I at length, by degrees, forgot my fears. 



Not long after this memorable event T had a 

 narrow escape from a danger which I more fully 

 understood, and which terminated fatally to one 

 of my joyous companions. We, Samlets, were 

 not of solitary habits ; though not sailing after 

 each other in sleepy shoals, like the tame dace, 

 we kept much together, and at the time of 

 which I speak, the waters of the Dee were 

 peopled by multitudes of our family. Dropping 

 down one day, with three or four others, to the 

 tail of a stream which poured its long continued 

 ripple into a pool of, to us, unknown depth and 

 extent, and intent on the pursuit of the insect 

 tribe on the surface of the water, we took no 

 note of .a monstrous being of our own species, 

 which at first appeared like a log of wood, or the 

 branch of a dead tree, as he lay motionless, and 



