All the ditch-water life of a summer day was pulsating around the young pike.
Water-spiders went up for air and came down with it between their hind legs, to moor their silvery diving-bells beneath the whorls of the water-moss. One boat-bug after another, with a shining air-bubble on its belly to act as a swimming-bag, and for oars a pair of long legs sticking far out at the sides, darted with great spurts through the water, or rose and sank with the speed of a balloon. The young pike peered upwards, and saw in the shelter of a tuft of rushes a collection of black, boat-shaped whirligigs, showing like dots against the shining surface. The little water-beetles lay and dozed; but all at once a sudden storm seemed to descend upon them and they scattered precipitately, whirling away in wider and wider circles, only to congregate again just as suddenly, like a flock of sheep.
The young pike disappeared from the heron’s view in a cloud of mud, and glided off to some distance, finally coming to anchor on a wide submerged plain in a broad creek, shadowed by a clump of luxuriant marsh marigolds, whose yellow flowers gleamed out from among the clusters of green, heart-shaped leaves.
There was never any peace around her. When one animal was on its way down, another would be on its way up. And the bed of ooze beneath her was in incessant motion. Sticks moved to right and left; hairy balls lay and rolled over one another; there was a twisting and turning of larvae in all directions. The active water-beetles were dredging incessantly, releasing leaves and stalks which slowly and weirdly rose to the surface. Air-bubbles, too, were set free, and ascended quickly with a rotary motion.
Here two large tiger-beetles were fighting with a poor water-bug. The flat-bodied insect stretched out its scorpion-like claws towards its enemies, but the tiger-beetles seized it one at each end, beat off its claws with their strong palpi, and tore its head from its body. It must have been almost a pleasure to find oneself so neatly despatched!
Everything tortured and killed down here, some, indeed, even devoured themselves. To lose arms and legs and flesh from their body was all in the order of the day; and anything resting for but a minute was taken for carrion.
The big horse-leech had wound its rhythmically serpentine way through the water. It was tired now, and had just stretched itself out for a moment’s rest, when the supposed pieces of stick upon which it lay seized it, and voracious heads with sharp jaws attacked its flesh. It was within an ace of being made captive for ever, but at last succeeded in making its escape and pushing off, with two of its tormentors after it.
The young pike watched attentively the flight of the black leech. She saw that to devour others and to avoid being devoured oneself was the end and aim of life.
For a long time she remained quite still, only an undulating movement of the dorsal fin and the malicious glitter of the eyes revealing her vitality. Slowly she opened and closed her small, wide mouth, and let the oxidizing water flow over her blood-red gills.
It was not long before she had forgotten her recent peril, and once more became filled with the cruel passion of the hunter.