198 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



Giants had left were now white, and the split open 

 iialves of one of them made it look like a little 

 white flower about large enough for a fairy. 



I put one of the Giants under a microscope 

 magnifying eighty times, and what a 

 horrid monster appeared ! I was afraid 

 of him myself. Great, scissory-look- 

 ing jaws standing out in front, black 

 legs, black eyes, hairs reaching out from 

 the sides of his body. I was glad to 

 Chrysopa larva. take my eye away and see the 

 One of the "Giants monster dwindle to a dot. He 



of the Bean-stalks" ^ emphatic dot, how- 



(A little larger than J r 



mine when full- ever. A whole world of deter- 

 grown.) mination was in him. 



Blood-thirsty Giants these creatures were for 

 one-day-olds. I hunted some Aphides for them, 

 and the Giants went to work at once. It is " ex- 

 cellent to have a giant's strength," but more espe- 

 cially to have his jaws in this instance. No mat- 

 ter if an aphis were almost twice as large as a 

 Giant, into that aphis' side went those dreadful 

 little pincers, and the Giant held on. 



Wise men tell us that the mandibles of these 

 larvae are hollow underneath, and that the little 

 maxillae exactly fit into these grooves, and so 

 make a pair of tubular forceps through which the 

 juice passes from the aphis into its eater. Wise 

 men tell us another thing, too, and that is that 

 the feet of the Giants are particularly fitted to let 



