epy, for it was very hot and bright. The gnats (who did not care
the least for their poor brothers' death) danced a foot over his head
quite happily, and a large black fly settled within an inch of his nose,
and began washing his own face and combing his hair with his paws: but
the dragon-fly never stirred, and kept on chatting to Tom about the
times when he lived under the water.

Suddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream; cooing, and
grunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into a bag two
stock-doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, and left
them there to settle themselves and make music.

He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the
noise; a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one
moment of soft brown fur, and the next of shining glass: and yet it was
not a ball; for sometimes it broke up and streamed away in pieces, and
then it joined again; and all the while the noise came out of it louder
and louder.

Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course, with his
short sight, he could not even see it, though it was not ten yards away.
So he took the neatest little header into the water, and started off to
see for himself; and, when he came near, the ball turned out to be four
or five beautiful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were
swimming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling,
and cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, in the most
charming fashion that ever was seen. And if you don't believe me, you
may go to the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid that you won't see it
nearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, and go down
to Cordery's Moor, and watch by the great withy pollard which hangs over
the backwater, where the otters breed sometimes), and then say, if
otters at play in the water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest
creatures you ever saw.

But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted out from the rest,
and cried in the water-language sharply enough, "Quick, children, here
is something to eat, indeed!" and came at poor Tom, showing such a
wicked pair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teeth in a grinning mouth,
that Tom, who had thought her very handsome, said to himself, _Handsome
is that handsome does_, and slipped in between the water-lily roots as
fast as he could, and then turned round and made faces at her.

"Come out," said the wic