THE NIGHT-SIDE OF NATURE. 



209 



loving animal almost the very day the pond was 

 formed shows how much is overlooked if we fa- 

 miliarize ourselves only with the events of the 

 day, and ignore, as young naturalists are all too 

 apt to do, the night-side of nature. 



If the reader were to stand on the bank of 

 the little pond early in the morning, his attention 

 would doubtless be drawn exclusively to the 

 lilies, and the skimming barn-swallows or fiery 

 dragon-flies that outspeed them would not be 

 seen. Here and there the waters would be rip- 

 pled, but only the broad leaves of the lotus trem- 

 bling in the breeze would catch his eye, yet that 

 ripple marks the progress of a monstrous water- 

 snake. Charmed by the beauty of a trailing 

 vine that rests like an emerald serpent on the 

 pond's placid surface, the deep tones of enor- 

 mous frogs will be unheard, yet here are giants 

 of their race that quickly found the spot, many 

 of them larger and more musical than their 

 brethren in the meadows. By the side of a min- 

 iature lily from Siberia, scarcely an inch in width, 

 may pop up the rugged head of the ferocious 

 snapping-turtle, but the on-looker will see only a 

 bit of wood floating in the water, so absorbed is 

 he in the wonderful display of aquatic bloom. 



Now, this is not an imaginary case, but the 

 record of more than one actual occurrence, and 

 I lay stress upon the particulars because it shows 



