130 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



here were good-sized insects rowing about on the 

 water itself. They supported themselves on the 

 four hinder legs, rowing with the middle pair, 

 and steering with the hinder ones, while the front 

 limbs were held aloft ready for the seizing of 

 prey. I watched three of them approach the 

 ant, which was struggling to reach the shore, and 

 the first to reach it hesitated not a moment, but 

 leaped into the air from a take-off of mere aque- 

 ous surface film, landed full upon the drowning 

 unfortunate, grasped it, and at the same instant 

 gave a mighty sweep with its oars, to escape from 

 its pursuing, envious companions. Off went the 

 twelve dimples, marking the aquatic footprints 

 of the trio of striders; and as the bearer of the 

 ant dodged one of its own kind, it w^as suddenly 

 threatened by a small, jet submarine of a diving 

 beetle. At the very moment when the pursuit 

 was hottest, and it seemed anybody's ant, I 

 looked aside, and the little water-bugs passed 

 from my sight forever — for scattered over the 

 surface were seven strange, mumbling mouths. 

 Close as I was, their nature still eluded me. At 

 my slightest movement all vanished, not with the 

 virile splash of a fish or the healthy roll and dip 

 of a porpoise, but with a weird, vertical with- 



