“Well, as I said, I made one of these pits, and in the funnel end I lay in wait for ants. Soon one came along, slipped over the edge, as I expected, and tumbled right into my open mouth. Nor was she the only one. Some were strong enough to turn, even while they were slipping, and start to crawl up again, but I just heaped some sand on my head and threw it at them, and down they would come. My aim was always good, so were the ants, though I only sucked their juice. Of course I did not leave their skins around to frighten away other ants. I piled them on my head, and gave them a toss, which sent them some distance away. After a time I stopped eating, and made a cocoon. Then I went to sleep!—for many days—during which I changed wonderfully, as any one must know who has seen ant lion babies and now sees me. This is all of my story, and I suppose we will hear about another tiresome water baby.” [Illustration: “‘I MADE ONE OF THESE PITS AND IN THE FUNNEL END I LAY IN WAIT FOR ANTS’”] “You shall hear about a water baby,” replied Mrs. Caddice Fly, waving her antennæ by way of salute, “but tiresome will do for your own homely children. I will begin by saying that, with the accidents of life, it is a wonder that any of us are here. When we caddice flies were hatched we were soft, white, six-footed babies. We were called worms, though we were not worms. Think of it! Soft bodied, with not very strong legs, white, and living at the bottom of the pond. Could anything be worse? No wonder we seemed to do nothing at first but try to get away from things that wanted to eat us. I tell you, pond life is most exciting. After a while the front part of our bodies and our heads began to turn brown, and, as the rest of us was white, and seemed likely to stay so, we all decided to make a case or house to cover our white part. So we set to work and of bits of sticks, tiny stones, and broken shells, glued together with silk from our own bodies, we made these cases. True, many of us went down the throat of Belostoma, the giant water bug, before we had finished, but those of us who didn’t crawled into our little houses, locking ourselves in by two strong hooks which grew at the end of our bodies. We could move about, but of course we carried our houses with us and——” “How ridiculous!” said Mrs. Ant Lion. “Why didn’t you stay still?” “Because we didn’t wish to,” answered the caddice fly. “We had to eat, and we had to get away from those who wished to eat us. At last we went to sleep, after first spinning a veil of silk over our front and back doors. I can’t answer for the others, but when I awoke I tore open my silken door, threw aside my pupa skin, and found I had wings. Since then I have had a new life, but even that has its enemies, and one never knows what will happen.” With which doleful saying Mrs. Caddice Fly sailed away to the pond to lay some eggs among the water plants.