this I dropped into the water; but somehow or other I
turned over very clumsily, and, like the _Ranatra_, I fell through into
the colander, and was transferred to a pickle-jar.

Anything more disagreeable than being shaken up in a glass bottle, with
beetles, and boatmen, and larvae of all sorts and sizes, including a
dragon-fly in the second stage of his career, I can hardly imagine. When
they took us out and put us into the glass pond, matters were certainly
better, though there is a vast difference between a glass pond and a
pond in a wood.

The first day it was by no means a bad imitation of a real pond, except
for the want of a bed of mud. Molly had covered the bottom of the glass
with gravel which she had steadily washed till water would run clear
from it, in spite of the impatient exclamations of Francis, that it
"would do now," and quite regardless of the inconvenience to which I was
subjected by being kept in the pickle-jar. In this gravel she had
embedded the roots of some Water Crowfoot and other pond-plants. The
stones in the middle were nicely arranged, and well covered with moss
and water-weeds. When water had been poured in up to the brim of the
bell-glass, and we had been emptied out of the jars, the dragon-fly
larva got into a good hole among the stones and ate most of the May-fly
grubs, water-shrimps, and so forth, as they came into sight. I did not
do badly myself, and only the bigger and stronger members of our society
and a few skins were there next day, when Francis brought a jar full of
minnows, a small carp, and a bull's-head, and turned them out in our
midst.

"How they dart and swim round and round!" he exclaimed.

"Splendid," said Molly. "I _am_ so sorry I am going away just now. You
will try and keep the water fresh, won't you?"

"Of course I will. And let me have the scarlet spider whilst you are
away. I couldn't find another."

"Well, if you must; but do take care, Francis. And here are the two
bits of gutta-percha tubing to make into syphons. You must put them into
hot water for a minute before you bend them, you know."

"I'll do it to-morrow, Molly; I have nothing else _to_ do, you know,
because Edward Brown won't be back for three or four days. So we can do
nothing about the cricket club."

It was on the third day, when both the pieces of gutta-percha tubing
were in a wash-hand basin of hot water, and the dragon-fly larva and I
were finishing a minnow, with the help of the water