“Well, you see, the whole of me didn’t burst. I simply grew too big for my skin, or my pupa case, as the wise men call it, and it cracked right open. I was climbing on a water plant when this happened, for all at once I had felt a longing to leave the water and get to the open air. My first effort was to get rid of the useless old shell which still clung to me, but I had quite a tussle before I could do so, and afterward I was very weak and tired. But the result was worth all my labour, for I found myself with these four wings, and the rest of my beautiful body, and I needed only to dry myself before sailing away on the wind, the swiftest thing on wings, and the most renowned mosquito killer on record. Of course, my legs aren’t arranged for walking. Why should they be? All six of them go forward, as if they were reaching for something, and so they are, reaching for something to eat. Woe betide any insect I start after. I catch him every time. I ought to, for I have thousands of eyes, and I can fly forward, backward, or any old way. I never stop to eat my dinner either. I hold it, and eat it as I go. Now if I had time, I would tell you how the children of Japan make a holiday, and go out to catch us for pets, and how they sing pretty songs to us and——”
“It is about time you stopped,” interrupted Mrs. Ant Lion. “You have tried our patience long enough, and I mean to speak this very minute. I’ve been told I am much like the dragon flies,” she added to the company, “but my babies are not at all like theirs. They do not belong to the water, and I am glad of it. I’m tired of water babies. I’ve heard so much of them to-day. My mother had the good sense to lay her eggs in sand, and I shall do the same. I was hungry from the minute I was hatched, and I would have run after something to eat right away, only I found I couldn’t. My legs were fixed in such a way I had to walk backward.”
“Backward?” echoed Ruth.
“Yes, backward. So there was nothing to do but to dig a trap for my dinner, and I set about it pretty quick. No one showed me how, either. I simply used my shovel-shaped head, and before long I had made quite a pit, broad and rounded at the top, and sloping to a point like a funnel at the bottom. You have seen them, of course?”
“I think I have,” answered Ruth.
“They are not hard to find if you keep your eyes open,” went on the ant lion.
“Well, as I said, I made one of these pits, and in the funnel end I lay in wait for ants. Soon one came along, slipped over the edge, as I expected, and tumbled right into my open mouth. Nor was she the only one. Some were strong enough to turn, even while they were slipping, and start to crawl up again, but I just heaped some sand on my head and threw it at them, and down they would come. My aim was always good, so were the ants, though I only sucked their juice. Of course I did not leave their skins around to frighten away other ants. I piled them on my head, and gave them a toss, which sent them some distance away. After a time I stopped eating, and made a cocoon. Then I went to sleep!—for many days—during which I changed wonderfully, as any one must know who has seen ant lion babies and now sees me. This is all of my story, and I suppose we will hear about another tiresome water baby.”
“‘I MADE ONE OF THESE PITS AND IN THE FUNNEL END I LAY IN WAIT FOR ANTS’”
“You shall hear about a water baby,” replied Mrs. Caddice Fly, waving her antennæ by way of salute, “but tiresome will do for your own homely children. I will begin by saying that, with the accidents of life, it is a wonder that any of us are here. When we caddice flies were hatched we were soft, white, six-footed babies. We were called worms, though we were not worms. Think of it! Soft bodied, with not very strong legs, white, and living at the bottom of the pond. Could anything be worse? No wonder we seemed to do nothing at first but try to get away from things that wanted to eat us. I tell you, pond life is most exciting. After a while the front part of our bodies and our heads began to turn brown, and, as the rest of us was white, and seemed likely to stay so, we all decided to make a case or house to cover our white part. So we set to work and of bits of sticks, tiny stones, and broken shells, glued together with silk from our own bodies, we made these cases. True, many of us went down the throat of Belostoma, the giant water bug, before we had finished, but those of us who didn’t crawled into our little houses, locking ourselves in by two strong hooks which grew at the end of our bodies. We could move about, but of course we carried our houses with us and——”