LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE OUT-DOOR WORLD 569 



water-soaked hair, they will answer that you did not 

 pluck the hair out by the roots and that it is the root that 

 makes the head to the "snake"; besides, the water 

 must be muddy and warm. When these conditions are 

 all right, they say, the hair will absorb the vitalizing 

 elements, and the substance of the hair being itself live 

 animal matter, it only changes its habits when it begins 

 an independent life as a hair animal. 



Thus the myth is passed on from one generation to 

 another. But naturalists will tell you that the larvae 

 or the young of the gordius are sort of tadpole-like 

 animals which live in the bodies of live May flies and 

 caddis flies. 



Since the horsehair " snake " is aquatic in its habits, 

 and the larvae of both the caddis fly and the May fly 

 also live in the w r ater, it does not seem improbable that 

 the gordius should find its way to the inside of their 

 bodies. I have caught many caddis worms, May flies, 

 and caddis flies, but I never discovered any live creatures 

 inside of them. While out trout fishing one day, how- 

 ever, I selected a black cricket for bait, and as I im- 

 paled the insect upon the hook I was astonished to see 

 a full grown gordius five or six inches in length emerge 

 from the cricket's body through the hole made by the 

 fishhook. 



The body of the cricket was not more than a half inch 

 in length, consequently the horsehair " snake " inside 

 must have been wound up like a watch spring, not leav- 

 ing much room for anything else in the line of intestines 

 and other necessary organs. 



One of the most familiar of insects is the common fly, 



