CHAPTER VII THE POND

The pond, the delight of my early childhood, is still a sight
whereof my old eyes never tire. What animation in that verdant
world! On the warm mud of the edges, the frog's little tadpole
basks and frisks in its black legions; down in the water, the
orange-bellied newt steers his way slowly with the broad rudder of
his flat tail; among the reeds are stationed the flotillas of the
caddis worms, half protruding from their tubes, which are now a
tiny bit of stick and again a turret of little shells.

In the deep places, the water beetle dives, carrying with him his
reserves of breath: an air bubble at the tip of the wing cases and,
under the chest, a film of gas that gleams like a silver
breastplate; on the surface, the ballet of those shimmering pearls,
the whirligigs, turns and twists about; hard by there skims the
unsubmersible troop of the pond skaters, who glide along with side
strokes similar to those which the cobbler makes when sewing.

Here are the water boatmen, who swim on their backs with two oars
spread cross-wise, and the flat water scorpions; here, squalidly
clad in mud, is the grub of the largest of our dragonflies, so
curious because of its manner of progression: it fills its hinder
parts, a yawning funnel, with water, spurts it out again and
advances just so far as the recoil of its hydraulic cannon.

The mollusks abound, a peaceful tribe. At the bottom, the plump