THE ANTHROPOPHASI. 129 



duit througli which they breathe is placed at the extremity of 

 the tail. If they are the least disturbed, they roll themselves 

 up, swim with the greatest rapidity, dart down, and disappear. 

 They feed, most probably, upon the imperceptible insects 

 which they find in the water, or upon certain parts of earth 

 or slime. 



But this is the most important moment of the life of our 

 little dolphins. You may see them change their position; 

 their head is no longer under the water; it floats on the sur- 

 face, it swells, and its brown skin splits and opens. Then 

 from that split issues a head, soon followed by a body; you 

 recognise the gjiat, which has accomplished the phases of its 

 first existence, and which is about to enter into a new life. 

 The cast-oflF dress it has quitted — its ancient skin — becomes 

 for it a little boat which carries it upon the water ; for this 

 insect, which but now lived in the water, and would have 

 died at the end of two or three seconds if you had taken it 

 put of it, has now nothing so much to fear as water; it would 

 inevitably perish if it touched it. Then it is placed upright 

 upon its ancient skin, like a rower in his boat. The least 

 breath of air is for it, as you may imagine, a fearful tempest, 

 considering the mortal dangers the water would make it run, 

 and the shallowness of its boat. The boat floats here and 

 there at hazard, whilst it completes its endeavours to extricate 

 itself; then, if it achieves this result without being wetted, it 

 flies away, and carries on its pursuit of man, till the day at 

 which the care for its posterity shall bring it back to the edge 

 of some pool or other stagnant water. There, crouched close 

 upon the verge, it gives to the water little parcels of eggs, 

 which leave the dry ground, and float about upon the surface. 

 At the end of a few days, by an opening in the bottom of the 

 e^s, little dolphins escape, which find themselves thus bom 

 in the water, where they are to live tiU the time of their 

 transformation. 



It is that which just now drew that pretty water-wagtail 

 to the bank of the rivulet, that which made her determine 

 to place her nest at the root of the white poplar, where I dis- 

 covered it. Gnats form the principal food of swallows, and 

 it is probable that they take their migratory flight when there 

 are no more gnats to be found. 



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