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 was 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- 
