sticking on every tree trunk near the brook.

On the surface of the brook are seen the shadow-like water-gnats,
drifting with apparent aimlessness over the surface, but having in view
a definite and deadly purpose, as many a half drowned insect will find
to its cost.

Under the shade of the willows that overhang its banks the whirligig
beetles will gather, sociably circling round and round in their mazy
dance, bumping against each other in their swift course, but glancing
off unhurt from the collision, protected from injury by the stout coats
of mail which they wear.

They really look like unskilful dancers practising their "figures" for
the first time. They, however, are not engaged in mere amusement, but,
like the water-gnats, are absorbed in the business of life. The
naturalist knows, when he sees these creatures, that they do not form
the hundredth part of those which are hidden from human eyes below the
surface of the little brook, and that the whole of the stream is as
instinct with life, as if it had been haunted by the Nipens, the
Undines, and the host of fairy beings with whom the old legends peopled
every river and its tributaries.

They are just as wonderful, though clad in material forms, as any water
spirit that ever was evolved from the poet's brain, and have the
inestimable merit of being always within reach whenever we need them.

I will venture to assert that no fairy tales, not even excepting those
of the "Arabian Nights," can surpass in marvel the true life-history of
the mayfly, the frog, the newt, and the dragon-fly, as will be narrated