colonists of the pond alive and causes the unhealthy products to be
oxidized and disappear.

Old hand though I be, I take an interest in this trite marvel of a
bundle of weeds perpetuating hygienic principles in a stagnant
pool; I look with a delighted eye upon the inexhaustible spray of
spreading bubbles; I see in imagination the prehistoric times when
seaweed, the first-born of plants, produced the first atmosphere
for living things to breathe at the time when the silt of the
continents was beginning to emerge. What I see before my eyes,
between the glass panes of my trough, tells me the story of the
planet surrounding itself with pure air.




CHAPTER VIII THE CADDIS WORM

Whom shall I lodge in my glass trough, kept permanently wholesome
by the action of the water weeds? I shall keep caddis worms, those
expert dressers. Few of the self-clothing insects surpass them in
ingenious attire. The ponds in my neighborhood supply me with five
or six species, each possessing an art of its own. Today, but one
of these shall receive historical honors.

I obtain it from the muddy bottomed, stagnant pools crammed with
small reeds. As far as one can judge from the habitation merely,
it should be, according to the specialists, Limnophilus
flavicornis, whose work has earned for the whole corporation the
pretty name of Phryganea, a Greek term meaning a bit of wood, a