50 
LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
CHAPTER IV. 
THE LASSO-THROWERS OF THE PONDS AND OCEANS. 
" Transparent forms too fine for mortal sight, 
Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light. " 
Millions on millions thus, from age to age, 
With simplest skill, and toil unwearyable, 
No moment and no movement unimproved, 
Laid line on line, on terrace, terrace spread, 
To swell the heightening, brightening, gradual mound, 
By marvellous structure climbing tow'rds the day, 
Each wrought alone, yet all together wrought 
Unconscious, not unworthy instruments 
By which a hand invisible was rearing 
A new creation in the secret deep. 
MONTGOMERY. 
F among all the children of 
life we wished to choose out 
the most brilliant, graceful, and 
sylph-like creatures whose histories 
are more like fairy poems than 
sober reality, we could scarcely do 
better than select those which we 
are now going to study under the 
name of the " lasso-throwers," and 
strange as this name may appear, 
I hope to show that it is not too 
fanciful to be accurate. 
Every one knows that the long 
cord or thong called the lasso is 
the peculiar weapon of the South 
American hunter. From his earliest childhood the 
