, hundreds of flies
were whirling about.

"Those are coleopterae," said Sumichrast to Lucien.

"Why do they turn round and round like that?" inquired he.

"To find their food, for they are carnivorous, and require a great deal
of nourishment. In France they are commonly called _tourniquets_, or
_water-fleas_."

Lucien wanted to catch one, but could not succeed; l'Encuerado and
Sumichrast joined in the pursuit. At first I amused myself with watching
the useless efforts of my companions; but at last, thinking myself
cleverer than they, I squatted down also. There we all four were, with
our hands in the water, perfectly motionless, and holding our breath,
the better to remain motionless. The insects were all in a close mass,
and whirling round like a living mosaic, moving in every direction
without separating; but however quickly we raised our hands, we all
failed in our efforts.

An hour was spent in this way, and even then we should not have given up
the chase if the sun had not ceased to shine on the bank, and the
insects had therefore moved beyond our reach, so as to be within its
influence. Lucien, vexed at their going away, and l'Encuerado, furious
at having been conquered by the agile creatures, commenced throwing
stones at them with the hope of wounding one. Even in this they did not
succeed, so l'Encuerado satisfied himself by calling them fools, a name
which, in his opinion, constituted a gross insult.

About twenty tadpoles, swimming in a puddle of water, were taken by
Lucien for fish.

"They are frogs," I said to him.

"Where are their feet, then?"

"Under the brown skin, which makes them look like fish; when the time
of their metamorphosis arrives, this skin will split all down their
back, and a little frog will come out of it. Look at this tadpole I have
just caught; you can see the feet through its transparent skin. To-day
it is a fish, that is to say, it breathes through gills--those little
tufts you see on each side of its head--and perhaps to-morrow it will
undergo that metamorphosis which will cause it to breathe through its
mouth. The Toltecs, the great nation which preceded the Aztecs in
Mexico, counted the frog among their gods."

When putting the tadpole back into the pool, I noticed some whitish
insects, which were incessantly rising in jerks to the surface of the
water, and diving down again directly. Lucien, astonished at their
movements, cried out--

"But, papa, they are walking on