Instantly the professor was all attention. He leaped to his feet, and with his small, long-handled net in readiness he watched the progress of the large insect.
“It is a new kind of June bug,” he announced. “Very large, and with green and red wings. Oh, I must have that! It is worth considerable. No museum in America has one, and there are only a few specimens in Europe. It is rather late for June bugs to be flying, though. Could you put the ship a little more to the left, Mr. Glassford? I want to catch him.”
“That’s something new—using a big motor ship to catch a June bug,” remarked the inventor with a smile. But he shifted the fish-tail rudder, and the Comet obediently swerved over closer to the big, humming June bug.
But the insect apparently did not like the strange, big white-winged creature that was coming so close, and it made a sudden dart upward.
“After it!” cried the professor. “I must have it!”
Mr. Glassford tilted the ascending rudder so as to pull the ship upward, and it answered instantly, shooting toward the sky on an angle of about twenty degrees. This time the bug did not change its course.
The professor hurried aft to a little cockpit, in which the motor was located. As he did so the bug shifted its course, and took a position just above, and a little ahead of the pilot house. There it remained, keeping up a speed equal to that of the Comet.
“Don’t move, now! Don’t frighten it! I’ll have him in a minute!” cried the scientist, hurrying forward. He mounted to the top of the small pilot house, right under the elevation rudder, and then thrust out his long-handled net. He had the small cord bag almost over the flying June bug when something happened.
The net was whirled from the professor’s grasp as if a giant had plucked it from him, and then it was sent over the side of the ship and down toward the earth. At the same instant there was a crash of wood, and the port propeller ceased revolving.
“What’s happened?” cried Jerry excitedly.