“Come!” he invited, beckoning to the whites. “See!”
With a dusky finger he pointed to a queer-looking creature, seemingly half bug and half worm, which lay beneath the stone.
“Nice bug,” he stated. “Fish much like.”
“What do you call it?” quizzed Ben.
“Now, Ben,” broke in Tom, with mock severity, “do you mean to state that you don’t know the name of that peculiar little thinguma-jig?”
“Of course not. How should I? And you don’t know the name of it either, Mr. Johnny Wiseacre.”
“Yes, I do, Ben. Have you forgotten the teachings of the great Eliphalet Doolittle, Professor of Biology at good old Litchfield Academy, back home in Connecticut? No wonder you squeezed through that course by the skin of your teeth.”
“Gosh, Tom,” pleaded Ben, a trifle sheepishly, “I never could remember the names of all those confounded little bugs, beetles and butterflies.”
“Well, my boy,” went on Tom, assuming an owlish look, “the correct name for this curious little creature is helgramite. And to elucidate further, it is a larva, meaning the immature, wingless, and often wormlike form in which metabolous insects hatch from the egg, and in which they remain with increase in size and other minor changes until they assume the pupa or chrysalis stage.”
“Very well, smart Alec,” grinned Ben, “you win. But will the dad-blamed little things catch fish?”