MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 121 



) are also in such mud beside the brook, 

 and earth-worms abound. The little black bee- 

 tles are determined not to be captured, however, 

 and even if you put half a dozen in your tin 

 and pat down some earth over the mud, up come 

 the beetles through the earth and straight to the 

 top of the tin they go. 



Perhaps another time when you raise the mos- 

 quito-bar of your tin another fly, about the size 

 of a small house-fly, stands waiting for release, 

 though whether he came from the mud or slipped 

 under the mosquito-bar from outside is a ques- 

 tion. 



But in all my digging in the mud I have 

 never found any swallows, and have never verified 

 the statement that truthful Mr. Harrington made 

 to Mr. Pepys in 1663 that December day in the 

 coffee-house, " Swallows are often brought up in 

 their nets out of the mudd from under water, 

 hanging together to some twigg or other, dead in 

 ropes, and brought to the fire will come to life." 



Yet I venture to say that many people could 

 not tell me the names of the real Mud Folk, and 

 the guesses might be as false as the swallow- 

 story that was told of the " country above Quins- 

 borough." 



Innocent Mr. Pepys ! He seems to have be- 

 lieved all that was told to him. I am afraid he 

 did not go poking around in the mud enough 

 when he was a boy. I should think that he was 



