WATER-TIGERS. 77 



never to be safe from intrusion, even in my own 

 yard. 



" What do you do with them ? " 



" Keep them till they turn to butterflies." 



" What do you do with them then ? " 



" Let them go." 



" Oh, you just keep them to " 



" To see them transform." 



"What?" 



" To see them transform." 



Amazement evidently filled the soul of the 

 neighbor. 



" I never saw them," she said. 



And this from a woman forty-five or so, with 

 eyes in her head. What sort of a world do such 

 people live in, that they never notice anything? 

 And what, I wonder, can be that woman's idea of 

 some of the verses in the Psalms ? I presume she 

 has read them a hundred times. " Praise the 

 Lord from the earth " ye " creeping things," says 

 David. What are the " creeping things," accord- 

 ing to this woman's eyes ? I wonder if she ever 

 explained that verse to herself. 



I remember the day when the idea first entered 

 my brain that other creatures than human have 

 interesting lives. I must have been about eight 

 or nine years old. I had been taking a walk in a 

 little mining 1 town among the Sierra Nevada foot- 



c5 c5 



hills. A minister was with me, and he had a 

 hand-microscope or glass in his pocket. 



