MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 129 



flies with branchiae on their sides and slender 

 bristles behind. These creatures seem to have 

 an unaccountable tendency toward death. They 

 appear very lively as they skip along through the 

 water after their pretty fashion, but take them 

 home and try to keep them until transformation 

 and you will be likely to make a failure with 

 most of them. Heartless things they are, too, 

 capable of hustling about the dead bodies of their 

 brethren in a most unfeeling manner. It is well 

 that death does not frighten them, else their lives 

 in a pool would be full of terror. If I were one 

 of the water-creatures I should constantly be ex- 

 pecting my own demise, though I should keep my 

 eyes open, not shut, as did Cosmo de Medici, of 

 whom it is related that, a short time before his 

 death, his wife asking why he kept his eyes shut, 

 he replied, " to get them in the way of it." A 

 water-insect having no eye-lids could hardly fol- 

 low the Italian's example. 



Multitudes of mosquitoes must go forth from 

 some of these pools in the course of the summer. 

 It is strange that there is hardly a bit of land or 

 water that is not claimed by some of the lower 

 creatures. We do not know it, perhaps, but we 

 learn it after a while. One may collect insects 

 in one's own neighborhood for a long time, and 

 yet may be astonished at finding new ones in 

 the next hollow. So, after a time, one comes to 

 believe Charles Kingsley's saying, " He is a 



