The Life of the Fly 



have their bath, I brought them back again, 

 carrying the more tired ones in a basket. 



A month or two after, the little birds of 

 my dreams were a reality. There were twen- 

 ty-four of them. They had been hatched by 

 two hens, of whom one, the big, black one, was 

 an inmate of the house, while the other was 

 borrowed from a neighbour. 



To bring them up, the former is sufficient, 

 so careful is she of her adopted family. At 

 first, everything goes perfectly: a tub with two 

 fingers' depth of water serves as a pond. On 

 sunny days, the ducklings bathe in it under the 

 anxious eye of the hen. 



A fortnight later, the tub is no longer 

 enough. It contains neither cresses crammed 

 with tiny Shellfish nor Worms and Tadpoles, 

 dainty morsels both. The time has come for 

 dives and hunts amid the tangle of the water- 

 weeds; and for us the day of trouble has also 

 come. True, the miller, down by the brook, 

 has fine ducks, easy and cheap to bring up ; the 

 tallow-smelter, who has extolled his burnt fat 

 so loudly, has some as well, for he has the ad- 

 vantage of the waste water from the spring 

 at the bottom of the village; but how are we, 

 right up there, at the top, to procure aquatic 



166 



