"To find their food, for they are carnivorous, and require a great deal of nourishment. In France they are commonly called tourniquets, or water-fleas."
Lucien wanted to catch one, but could not succeed; l'Encuerado and Sumichrast joined in the pursuit. At first I amused myself with watching the useless efforts of my companions; but at last, thinking myself cleverer than they, I squatted down also. There we all four were, with our hands in the water, perfectly motionless, and holding our breath, the better to remain motionless. The insects were all in a close mass, and whirling round like a living mosaic, moving in every direction without separating; but however quickly we raised our hands, we all failed in our efforts.
An hour was spent in this way, and even then we should not have given up the chase if the sun had not ceased to shine on the bank, and the insects had therefore moved beyond our reach, so as to be within its influence. Lucien, vexed at their going away, and l'Encuerado, furious at having been conquered by the agile creatures, commenced throwing stones at them with the hope of wounding one. Even in this they did not succeed, so l'Encuerado satisfied himself by calling them fools, a name which, in his opinion, constituted a gross insult.
About twenty tadpoles, swimming in a puddle of water, were taken by Lucien for fish.
"They are frogs," I said to him.
"Where are their feet, then?"
"Under the brown skin, which makes them look like fish; when the time of their metamorphosis arrives, this skin will split all down their back, and a little frog will come out of it. Look at this tadpole I have just caught; you can see the feet through its transparent skin. To-day it is a fish, that is to say, it breathes through gills—those little tufts you see on each side of its head—and perhaps to-morrow it will undergo that metamorphosis which will cause it to breathe through its mouth. The Toltecs, the great nation which preceded the Aztecs in Mexico, counted the frog among their gods."
When putting the tadpole back into the pool, I noticed some whitish insects, which were incessantly rising in jerks to the surface of the water, and diving down again directly. Lucien, astonished at their movements, cried out—
"But, papa, they are walking on their backs!"
"You are quite right; they are hydrocorises, allied to the tettigones, and consequently hemipteræ."