LETTER XIX. 



THE CABDIS — ASPECTS OF DEATH — FLOWING WATER — DRESS — THE 

 LEAP-CUTTER BEE. 



At the bottom of the rivulet are little morsels of reeds, little 

 sticks of a few lines in length, which have nothing left but 

 the bark. They are houses, in which the phryganes* suffi- 

 ciently ugly greyish cocoons, feed upon aquatic herbs, and 

 await the moment of issuing from the water in the form of 

 little butterflies— your pardon, savants! — of little nocttiellce, 

 which only fly by night. Previously to this transformation, 

 there comes a moment at which they fall asleep grubs, to 

 awake flies. They know that during the time in which they 

 take no food, they have enemies who have no notion of such 

 abstinence themselves, and to whom, during their sleep, they 

 could oppose no resistance. They know how to spin, and 

 they employ themselves in closing up the two ends of their 

 mansion. 



It has often been said, as an example of an invincible argu- 



* Phryganea grandis, the Caddis-fl?. — Ed. 



