"People are not supposed to be very funny at funerals," said Mary, severely. "Where did the little Thousand Islands May-flies come from, and why do the people there want to know about them?" "Because there are so many May-flies that they are a great pest. Not by eating crops--for there aren't any, I suppose, and the May-flies don't eat anything anyway--nor by carrying malaria, but just by living and dying all over; everywhere in one's summer cottage, down on the river-bank where you are watching the sunset, under the trees when you are lying in your hammock and trying to read, in your rowboat when you are paddling about to visit your neighbors on other islands. To be walked on and died on by hundreds and hundreds of little flies, and all the time, grows to be very uncomfortable. So the May-flies or river-flies or lake-flies as they are variously called are cordially hated by all the Thousand-Islanders and the St. Lawrence-Riverers. And the people want to know about where they come from, and how they live, and all about them, indeed, so as to try to find some way to be rid of them." "And do you know where they come from, and how they live, and all about them," asks Mary, with a slightly roguish manner, I fear. "Well, I know something. In the first place, after the dance of death, the few that don't die fly out over the lake or river or pond and drop a lot of little eggs into it. Then they die happy--if May-flies can be happy. Mind you, I don't say they can. We are the only animals that we know can be happy. And we mostly aren't. From the eggs hatch young May-flies without wings or long thread-like tails, but just little, flat, under-water creatures with gills along the sides so they can breathe without coming up to the surface. Some kinds burrow into the mud at the bottom, some kinds make little tubes or cases in which to live, while others stay mostly on the under side of stones. They eat little water-plants or broken-up stuff they find in the water, although some eat other little live animals, even other young May-flies. And many of them get eaten themselves. They are favorite food of the under-water dragons. You remember, don't you, Mary, how our dragons of Lagunita would snap up the young May-flies in Monday Pond?