soft bodies. Their short, stout legs enable them to dig well.

Their bodies are soft, but their jaws are not. O dear, no!

[Illustration]

The grown-up May flies mate, and then the female drops her eggs on the
surface of the water. When she does this a fish will very often jump up
and seize her, for fish are very fond of May flies, and lucky are the
May flies to escape these ravenous enemies.

The eggs are heavy and sink to the bottom, where they hatch into these
queer-looking larvæ that eat and grow and shed their skin just like the
dragon fly larvæ.

Those brushes along their sides are the gills they breathe with.

See the gills moving swiftly back and forth; they look as though the
larva wished to swim with them, but this is not why it moves them so
constantly.

The continual motion of the gills stirs up the water and keeps our larva
supplied with fresh air.

Nellie is asking what gills are.

Well, gills in fishes and in such insects as have gills, and in crabs
and lobsters and other creatures that live in the water, are parts that
often look like fringes or flat plates.