[Illustration: HE GLIDED INTO THE WATER SLOWLY.]

He glided into the water slowly, and, as it were, ashamed. But he
need not have been. In three years' seclusion he had swelled to fair
proportions. He was no longer of necessity the hunted, in most cases
now he was to be the hunter. As his head parted the surface, myriads of
frightened atoms fled panic-stricken before him. Each lash of his tail
scattered a microscopic community, and, as he progressed, the sense of
mastery grew upon him. Food was here, and in plenty. He had only to open
his mouth and take his fill. Yet he had no appetite. For the first few
days of his water existence he sat amid the weed, rising only at rare
intervals to the surface for air, and eating nothing. He was feeling the
sudden change. His skin was tense and drawn all over, so tense, indeed,
that each time he opened his mouth he felt the strain of it. Nor was the
discomfort in his mouth alone. His coat was stretched to bursting-point
along his back; his limbs seemed cased in gloves a size too small. A crawl
ashore brought no immediate relief, but helped him indirectly. As he
brushed between two grass stems, the skin of his lips split asunder, and,
when he entered the water again, that friendly element gently forced its
way into the gap. Every forward movement that he made now eased his old
worn skin a little backwards.

[Illustration: HIS OLD SKIN HUNG BEFORE HIM.]

First his head came free, and its old covering lay in tattered rags upon
his neck. He pulled his hands out next, leaving their casing as the
fingers of a turned glove. Next came his body's turn, for this he had to
squeeze himself between the weed-stalks. Lastly, he cleared his legs and
tail.

His old skin hung before him on the starwort, white-gleaming and
transparent, a perfect, neatly folded model of himself. Of himself, did I
say? It scarcely did his present splendour justice. Along his back now
rose the budding undulations of a crest. His flanks had lost their sombre
olive shade, and were suffused with mottlings of velvet black, mottlings
that turned to purple as they crept across his orange front.

[Illustration: THE TADPOLES WERE LAZILY BROWSING ON THE STARWORT.]

Even these beauties paled before his tail--a ribbon whose jet black centre
shaded into violet, and whose edges were flushed with crimson.

[Illustration: THE VERY STICKLEBACKS FOUGHT SHY OF HIM.]

Had he not been consumed with hunger, he might well have ling