out of the water in flight, the old
lady's credulity began to fancy itself imposed upon; for she
indignantly repressed what she considered the lad's tendency to
exaggeration, saying, "Sugar mountains may be, and rivers of rum may
be, but fish that flee ne'er can be!" Many popular beliefs concerning
animals partake of the character of the old lady's opinions regarding
the real and fabulous; and the circumstance tells powerfully in favor
of the opinion that a knowledge of our surroundings in the world, and
an intelligent conception of animal and plant life, should form part
of the school-training of every boy and girl, as the most effective
antidote to superstitions and myths of every kind.

[Illustration: FLYING FISH.]

The tracing of myths and fables is a very interesting task, and it
may, therefore, form a curious study, if we endeavor to investigate
very briefly a few of the popular and erroneous beliefs regarding
lower animals. The belief regarding the origin of the hair-worms is
both widely spread and ancient. Shakespeare tells us that

"Much, is breeding
Which, like the courser's hair, hath, yet but life,
And not a serpent's poison."

The hair-worms certainly present the appearance of long, delicate
black hairs, which move about with great activity amidst the mud of
pools and ditches. These worms, in the early stages of their
existence, inhabit the bodies of insects, and may be found coiled up
within the grasshopper, which thus gives shelter to a guest exceeding
many times the length of the body of its host. Sooner or later the
hair-worm, or _Gordius aquaticus_ as the naturalist terms it, leaves
the body of the insect, and lays its eggs, fastened together in long
strings, in water. From each egg a little creature armed with minute
hooks is produced, and this young hair-worm burrows its way into the
body of some insect, there to repeat the history of its parent. Such
is the well-ascertained history of the hair-worm, excluding entirely
the popular belief in its origin. There certainly does exist in
science a theory known as that of "spontaneous generation," which, in
ancient times, accounted for the production of insects and other
animals by assuming that they were produced in some mysterious fashion
out of lifeless matter. But not even the most ardent believer in the
extreme modification of this theory which holds a place in modern
scientific belief, would venture to main