Now how would we ourselves act, if our lives depended on catching things? And how would we act if our lives depended on not being caught? I don't think we could add much to what the insects and spiders have taught us. To hunt successfully you must get so near to your quarry that you can kill it. If you are quicker-footed, well and good. If you are slower-footed you may employ something quicker-footed than yourself--this is what happens in fox-hunting; or you may approach without being seen--this is what happens in deer-stalking: or you may hide yourself and wait for your quarry to approach you--this is what happens in tiger-shooting; or, lastly, you may employ traps and snares, which is how most fishing is done. I don't think that any creatures but ourselves employ lower creatures to hunt for them, but the other ways are used by all sorts of animals, and the last two are used more skilfully by insects and spiders than by anything else. [Illustration: THE SPIDER ON THE BRAMBLE BLOSSOM] Look at the pictures of the spider on the bramble-blossom. This particular spider belongs to a family called _Thomisus_ (I don't know why) and he varies in colour from a bright sulphur yellow to a delicate green, which is an exact match to the green of an unopened bramble-bud. In three of the pictures (a fly has settled close to the spider in two of them) you will be able to make out the spider pretty soon, I expect, for he has stretched his legs out. He keeps quite still in this position, and I think he fancies that he is a bramble-bud. But in the other picture I am pretty sure that, if he did not happen to be a rather fat spider, you would find it very difficult to distinguish him, and you may be certain that a fly would find it just as difficult. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and the sheep are bramble-buds. [Illustration: THE DRAGON IN THE WATER-WEED] [Illustration: THE DRAGON IN THE WATER-WEED This is the back of him, and you can see that he is covered with a delicate water-weed] And now for the Dragon in the Water-weed. You will not be able to make him out at all at first, but if you look long enough you will see his body which is too thick to be a piece of weed, and if you then let your eyes travel upwards, you will see his "mask," which is like a pair of folding-doors. These open and let his jaws out when he wants to use them. And his disguise is even more slim than that of the spider, for not only does he mimic the Water-weed round him--his straggly legs, which you should be able to make out also, help him in this--but he actually becomes part of his surroundings, for all over him grows a delicate water-weed, and when he is at the bottom of the pond, where he spends most of his time, he is _part_ of the bottom of the pond, and the creatures which he would eat walk past him carelessly. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and the sheep are water-weeds. [Illustration: THE LOBSTER MOTH CATERPILLAR As he looks when angry]