It seemed as if that passage, long ago, from the flying heron’s beak to the smooth surface of the water had hardened her gills and enabled them to bear the strong, drying oxygen of the air for a longer time; for she often ventured over ridges and peat-dams wider than a high-road.
When she could bear her hunger no longer, she ran herself aground and up into the grass, and then, bending herself together, leaped on in the direction of the new water. As soon as she was in the dry air, she could feel which way she ought to take; the neighbourhood of water affected her sensitive skin and drew her the shortest way. Everything flickered in a golden mist before her eyes, as she crept on, bending and leaping.
It was in the early hours of morning, when the grass was wet with dew, that she made these expeditions overland.
On one of these occasions she got into a large, deep pit, where the crayfish population that annually migrated from the lake had their stronghold. All over the perpendicular, blackened sides of the peat-cutting living crayfish claws opened at her.
Day after day for six months she went hunting here, and had enough to do with making her way into the hard, perpendicular walls in which the nippers had their holes. She knew from her experience in the lake that the crayfish could neither steer nor change their course when, with flapping tail, they darted backwards through the water, and were therefore easily caught when once she had hunted them out.
Only one ancient, mussel-scarred fellow, coal-black all over, and with one large and one very tiny claw, eluded her most ardent endeavours. It sat in a rocky hole, far in, its spear-armed head with the stalked eyes resting pensively upon its two unequal claws.
Once or twice it happened that she was aroused from her torpor at night by feeling a firm, hard grasp upon her body, and she darted round in a circle like a dog after its tail; but the Nipper always knew when to let go.
One day she was also obliged to leave this hole. She managed to break down the ridge between her and a neighbouring pit, where she enjoyed a few months’ ease and comfort. Here she passed the winter, and cleared the mud of every tench, every leech, and every snail.
When spring came she ate everything that came in her way. At this season frogs and toads made their way in multitudes to the pools. The frogs lay croaking and croaking, and the toads barked and growled, all of them full of love and delight, and therefore an easy prey.
Later on she revelled in frogs’ eggs, and swallowed great quantities of the fat, black yolks. Sometimes, too, she could feast on some long threads that were stretched about the reed-stubble; they were the eggs of the big toads, threaded like beads upon a string, and laid in the water to hatch.