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164
Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore
·
Charles Kingsley
140
But
perhaps
the
most
interesting
of
all
the
tribes
of
the
Naiads,—
(in
default,
of
course,
of
those
semi-human
nymphs
with
which
our
Teutonic
forefathers,
like
the
Greeks,
peopled
each
“sacred
fountain,”)—
are
the
little
“water-crickets,”
which
may
be
found
running
under
the
pebbles,
or
burrowing
in
little
galleries
in
the
banks:
and
those
“caddises,”
which
crawl
on
the
bottom
in
the
stiller
waters,
enclosed,
all
save
the
head
and
legs,
in
a
tube
of
sand
or
pebbles,
shells
or
sticks,
green
or
dead
weeds,
often
arranged
with
quaint
symmetry,
or
of
very
graceful
shape.
Their
aspect
in
this
state
may
be
somewhat
uninviting,
but
they
compensate
for
their
youthful
ugliness
by
the
strangeness
of
their
transformations,
and
often
by
the
delicate
beauty
of
the
perfect
insects,
as
the
“caddises,”
rising
to
the
surface,
become
flying
Phryganeæ
(caperers
and
sand-flies),
generally
of
various
shades
of
fawn-colour;
and
the
water-crickets
(though
an
unscientific
eye
may
be
able
to
discern
but
little
difference
in
them
in
the
“larva,”
or
imperfect
state)
change
into
flies
of
the
most
various
shapes;—
one,
perhaps,
into
the
great
sluggish
olive
“Stone-fly”
(Perla
bicaudata);
another
into
the
delicate
lemon-coloured
“Yellow
Sally”
(Chrysoperla
viridis);
another
into
the
dark
chocolate
“Alder”
(Sialis
lutaria):
and
the
majority
into
duns
and
drakes
(Ephemeræ);
whose
grace
of
form,
and
delicacy
of
colour,
give
them
a
right
to
rank
among
the
most
exquisite
of
God’s
creations,
from
the
tiny
“Spinners”
(Baëtis
or
Chloron)
of
incandescent
glass,
with
gorgeous
rainbow-coloured
eyes,
to
the
great
Green
Drake
(Ephemera
vulgata),
known
to
all
fishermen
as
the
prince
of
trout-flies.
These
animals,
their
habits,
their
miraculous
transformations,
might
give
many
an
hour’s
quiet
amusement
to
an
invalid,
laid
on
a
sofa,
or
imprisoned
in
a
sick-room,
and
debarred
from
reading,
unless
by
some
such
means,
any
page
of
that
great
green
book
outside,
whose
pen
is
the
finger
of
God,
whose
covers
are
the
fire
kingdoms
and
the
star
kingdoms,
and
its
leaves
the
heather-bells,
and
the
polypes
of
the
sea,
and
the
gnats
above
the
summer
stream.
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