le person, who has but a few minutes ago escaped
from his shell, yet hanging to a dead rose leaf long since forgotten
as it lay there on the window, has not, as I have, four beautiful
black streaks on his corselet. The white spots on his back offend
the eye; I prefer the modest color of my brown rings, and the soft
shade of the color of the faded leaf on a portion of my wings does
not contribute less to the majesty of my aspect than the colored
feathers which ornament my antennae. As for me, I am the domestic
fly."

"I was wrong not to have remarked the differences which strike me
now," said the child; "but what does this young scapegrace mean by
what he says of metamorphoses, and countless legs?"

"Yes, yes; that is well known; his race lives upon hairy prey; in my
opinion there is nothing to boast of in that. Although thou knowest,
it seems to me, very few things, still I think thou art not
ignorant, of course, that parents place their offspring where it is
best. The mother of this fly of the rose bush laid her egg in the
midst of the flock which was to nourish her little one. This one
came into the world in the shape of a worm."

"Why dost thou shudder?" grumbled angrily the fly. "This form is as
good as any other; call this worm larva if it suits thy fancy; he
has still to each of his fourteen rings three little feet; but he
has not such elegant members as mine, a haunch, a thigh, a leg, and
an instep with five joints." While speaking, the old fly displayed
pompously one of his legs, which he began immediately to caress with
the edge of his lips, because he saw a grain of dust on one of the
small hairs.

"But," perseveringly asked Piccolissima, who wished to hear the
history of the fly to the end, "who are these little flocks in the
midst of which your friend has passed his early days?"

"They are the little red or green grubs which infest the rose bush;
these he pierces and grinds up with his teeth, and sucks them up
with his strange mouth one after another as he moves slowly among
them upon those forty-two roots of feet, of which he is so vain, for
I maintain that they cannot be called legs, or any thing like legs."

"You, then," said the little girl, "have better formed members."

The fly, who remembered that he had not at all better limbs, looked
suddenly wearied with the conversation, and shaking his wings, flew
away to the window.

"Of what color were you formerly?" asked the little girl of her only