22 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
make one, under favorable circumstances. 
The "favorable circumstances," I imag- 
ined, meant the leniency of the river 
guard and the kindness of the keeper. I 
would have purchased the one on which 
he was at work but was informed that he 
had already sold it. I inquired how he 
obtained the horse hairs with which to 
make the guards, and he informed me 
that friends visiting him always brought 
a good supply. " Imagining your present 
occupation and manner of passing away 
time in your cell was to fail you, what 
would you do then ? " I inquired. " Well, 
I'd fall back on my performing flies ; you 
see we must have something to occupy 
our minds, to put a stop to the everlast- 
ing recollections of days gone by, and the 
mistakes and blunders we have made, or 
otherwise one-half of us would go stark 
mad. Oh yes ; I have passed away many 
hours in my cell harnessing up and train- 
ing my performing flies." "Excuse me, 
but I don't understand what you mean 
by performing flies," I replied. "Why, 
didn't you ever hear of or see flies per- 
form with a balancing pale ? of course 
they have to be kind of fixed up or har- 
nessed up, or else they'd be very ' fly ' " 
" No, I confess I have not ; it's all new to 
me; explain how it is done." "Come, 
now, I'll do better than that ; you seem 
to have plenty of coin, and we exiles are 
always short on it ; I'll sell you my best 
performing blue-bottle fly and a pure 
blonde at that, for two dollars, harness 
and all thrown in. I've had him now for 
three weeks, and he is sound as a dollar. 
I'll have him ready for you when you 
come to the island after more of those 
enemies!" (I never knew a flsherman, 
and but very few of the ordinary run of 
people that I have met, for whom the 
word anemones was not a little too much. 
It is always enemies or animies). "All 
right, it's a bargain. Here, Mr. Guard, 
you hold the money, then I will be sure 
that you will not break your promise." 
By this time we had reached the black 
rock, but not an anemone was to be seen. 
After a general overhauling of the water 
wall on the east side of the island, I dis- 
covered a large number of anemones 
some eight or ten feet below the surface. 
but they were well out of reach and 
almost out of sight ; even the guard could 
not detect them, but to my practiced eye- 
they were quite visible. By this time th& 
tide had become so high that I concluded 
to abandon all further search for that 
day. Having obtained from the guard 
his name and time for going on post next 
day, I went home, not back to the Aqua- 
rium. Oh no, I wouldn't do that, not if 
I had to stay out for a week. What, go 
back to the Aquarium without anemones ? 
No sir. I mailed a postal card, stating 
that I had found the anemones, but was- 
having some difficulty in capturing them. 
That night I made what is known as a 
"scraper." With one of these scrapers^ 
you can peel an anemone from any dock 
spile or smooth rock, no matter how fast 
it holds on. All Tuesday morning I was 
as restless and uneasy, well— as a " fish 
out of water," so anxious was I to be on 
my collecting ground. At last I reached 
the island, and felt happy and jovial 
when I found myself once more in the 
guard boat with my new friends. They 
looked curiously at the scraper, with its 
mosquito net bag and long, slender han- 
dle, and I looked just as curiously at 
them for some indication of a harnessed- 
up performing fly. 
"Now, Mr. Guard, please take me tO' 
the same place, where I discovered the 
anemones yesterday." 
The reader must understand that this 
part of the island was a retired spot, well 
out of sight, and I argued that it would be 
just the place for a private fly perform- 
ance. Well, to cut this narrative short,, 
after much trouble I obtained a goodly 
showing of anemones. Now for the fly part 
of it. The accompanying figure shows^ 
exactly how the blonde-headed blue- 
bottle was " harnessed up," as my prison 
friend termed it. The performer was a 
well-fed medium sized ordinary blue-bot- 
tle fly with the exception of his head 
which was of a light yellowish brown 
color, in fact a pure blonde. To the upper 
side of his wings a piece of writing paper 
had been either glued or gummed ; after 
the gum or glue had become dry, and the 
fly's wings were securely fastened to the- 
paper, the wings and paper had been cut 
