Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew,
Through croft and pasture wet with dew,
A living flash of light he flew."
—Tennyson.
If in your walks abroad you should meet with a pool of turbid water, do not object to linger for a moment on its brink. Nature, as a reward for your trouble, will gratify you with an extraordinary surprise. Stir up the mud with a stick, or, better still, with your hand; and then, as the children say, you shall see—what you shall see!
Oh, what an ugly creature is struggling in this handful of slime! It looks like a large spider!
Nay, examine it more attentively; it can do you no harm.
Well, it is a singular animal; greenish in colour, bristling with hairs, and covered with mud. It is not a spider, for it has only six legs and these are exactly like the legs of insects. I can distinctly make out three joints (articulations) to each tarsus, which terminates in a simple hook. The belly is formed of regular segments; is rounded above, and flat underneath. What do I see? On the top, and nearly in the middle, each ring is armed with a spine, so that the row of spiny projections remind one of the back of a crocodile. Pray tell me, what is this curious creature?