Insect Stories Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DRAGON OF LAGUNITA]

THE DRAGON OF LAGUNITA

When Mary and I came to examine our ant-lion dragon the day after our adventures among the Morrowbie Jukes pits, we found him dead in the bottle of sand. Perhaps his haughty spirit of dragon could not stand such ignominious bottling up, or perhaps there wasn't enough air.

Anyway, His Fierceness was dead. His cruel curved jaws would seize and pierce no more foraging ants. His thirsty throat would never again be laved by the fresh blood of victims. _Vale_ dragon!

But there are more dragons than one in our world. Not only more ant-lion dragons, but more other kinds of dragons. And this is one of the great advantages that Mary and I enjoy in our looking about in the fields and woods for interesting things. If we were looking for the dragons of fairy stories, we could only expect to find one kind--if, indeed, we could expect to find any kind at all in these days when so few fairies are left. If we _could_ find it, however, it would be a monstrous beast in a forest cavern, with scaled body and clawed feet and great ugly head that breathed fire and smoke from its gaping mouth. That would be an interesting sort of dragon to see, we confess, more interesting than the great one, a hundred yards long, that we saw in a Chinese procession in Oakland, with two excited Chinamen jumping about in front of its head and jabbing at its eyes with spears. And more interesting than the one that roars and spits at Siegfried on the stage while the big orchestra goes off into wild clamors of O-see-the-dragon music. But we do not expect ever to find a real fairy-story dragon any more, and so we content ourselves with trying to find as many different kinds of real dragons as we can in our world of little folk on the campus. These dragons are rather small, but they are unusually fierce and voracious, to make up for their lack of size. And so they serve very well to interest us.

To make up for the death of the ant-lion dragon of the sand-pits, I promised to take Mary to see the Dragon of Lagunita. Or rather the dragons, for there are many in Lagunita, and indeed many in several other places on the campus. Have I explained that Lagunita is a pretty Spanish word for "little lake," and that our Lagunita is just what its name means, and besides is as pretty as its name? There is only one trouble about it. And that is, that every year, in the long, rainless, sun-filled summer, it dries up to nothing but a shallow, parched hollow in the ground, and all the dragons have to move. But this moving is a remarkable performance. For while during the spring the Lagunita dragons live rather inactively in their lairs under the water, when summer comes they all transform themselves into great flying dragons of the air, and swoop and swirl about in a manner very terrifying to see.

The morning we were to make our journey to Lagunita, I came to Mary's house with a rake over my shoulder.

"But what are you going to do with the rake?" said Mary.

"One doesn't go to seek a dragon without weapons," I replied with dignity. "And a rake is a much more formidable weapon in the hands of a man who knows how to rake than a gun in the hands of a man who doesn't know how to shoot." I am something of an amateur gardener, but not at all the holder of a record at clay pigeons nor king of a _Schutzen-verein_. So I carried my rake.

"Then what weapon shall I carry?" asks Mary.

I ponder seriously.

"A tin lunch-pail," I finally reply.

"With luncheon in?" asks Mary.

"Empty," I say.

So we start.

I have already said that Lagunita is a pretty little lake. It lies just under the first of the foothills that rise ridge after ridge into the forested mountains that separate us from the ocean. Indeed, it is on the first low step up from the valley floor, and from its enclosing bank or sh.o.r.e one gets a good view of the level, reaching valley thickly set with live-oak trees and houses and fields. Around the little lake have grown up pines, willows and other beautiful trees, and at one side a tiny stream comes in during the wet season. There is no regular outlet, but the water which usually begins to come in about November keeps filling the shallow bowl of the lake higher and higher until by spring it is nearly bank full and may even overflow. Then as the long dry summer season sets in, the level of the water grows lower and lower until in August or September there is only left a small muddy puddle crammed with surprised and despairing little fishes and salamanders and water-beetles and the like, who are not at all accustomed to such behavior on the part of a lake. And then a few days later they are all gasping their last breaths there together on the sc.u.m-covered, waterless bottom.

But when Lagunita is really a lake, it is a very pretty one, and Mary and I love to go there and sit on the bank under the willows near the horse paddocks and watch the college boys rowing about in their graceful, narrow, long-oared sh.e.l.ls. These swift-darting boats look like great water-skaters, only white instead of black. You know the long-legged, active water-skaters or water-striders that skim about over the surface of ponds or quiet backwater pools in streams in summer time?

So Mary and I went to Lagunita with our rake and tin lunch-pail to hunt for dragons. No s.h.i.+ning armor; no great two-handed sword; no cap of invisibility. Just a rake and a tin lunch-pail.

"Where, Mary, do you think is the likeliest place for the dragon?" I ask.

Mary answers promptly, "There at the foot of the steep stony bank where the big willow-tree hangs over."

We go there. I grasp my rake firmly with both hands. I reach far out over the shallow water. Then I beat the rake suddenly down through the water to the bottom, and with a quick strong pull I drag it out, raking out with it a great ma.s.s of oozy mud and matted leaves. I drag this well up on sh.o.r.e, and both Mary and I flop down on our knees and begin pawing about in it. Suddenly Mary calls out, "I've got one," and holds up in her fingers an extraordinary, kicking, twisting creature with six legs, a big head, and a thick, ugly body on which seem to be the beginnings of several fins or wings. It has, this creature, two great staring eyes, and stout, sharp-pointed spines stick out from various parts of the body.

"Put him in the lunch-pail," I shout. I had already filled it half-full of water from the lake.

Then I found one; then Mary another, and then I still another. It was truly great sport, this dragon-hunting.

We put them all into the lunch-pail where they lay sullenly on the bottom, glaring at each other, but not offering to fight, as we rather hoped they would.

Then, what to do? These dragons in their regular lairs at the bottom of Lagunita might do a lot of most interesting things, but dredged up in this summary way and deposited in a strange tin pail in the glaring light of day, they seemed wholly indisposed to carry on any performances of dragon for our benefit. So we decided to take them home, and try to fix up for them a still smaller lakelet than Lagunita; one, say, in a tub! Then, perhaps, they would feel more at home and ease, and might do something for us.

So we took them home. And we fixed a tub with sand in the bottom, water over that, and over the top of the tub a screen of netting that would let air and sunlight in, but not dragons out. Then we collected some miscellaneous small water-beasties and a few water-plants, and put them in, and so really had a very comfortable and home-like place for the dragons. They seemed to take to it all right; we called our new lakelet Monday Pond, because of some relation between the tub and washday, I suppose, and we had very good fun with our dragons for several weeks. Think of the advantage of having your dragon right at home! If it is a bad day, or we are lazy, or there may be visitors who stay too long so there is only a little time for ourselves, how convenient it is to have a dragon--or indeed a whole brood of dragons--right in your study. Much better, of course, than to have to sail to a distant island and tramp through leagues of forest or th.o.r.n.y bushes or over burning desert or among spouting volcanoes to find your dragon, as most princes in fairy stories have to do.

I can't, of course, venture to tell you of all the interesting things that Mary and I saw our dragons do. Two or three will have to do. Or my publisher will cry, "Cut it short; cut it short, I say." And that will hurt me, for he is really a most forbearing publisher, and quite in the way of a friend. The three things shall be, one, eating, and what with; two, getting a new skin, and why; and third, changing from an under-water, crawling, squirmy, ugly dragon into an aerial, whizzing, flas.h.i.+ng, das.h.i.+ng, beautiful-winged dragon, and when. Of course one of the most important things about any dragon is what and how he eats; and the other most important thing about Mary's and my special kind of dragon is his remarkable change. This was to us much more remarkable than having three heads or even getting a new head every time an old one is cut off, which seems to be rather a usual habit of fairy-book dragons.

The dragons lay rather quietly on the sand at the bottom of Monday Pond most of the time. Sometimes one would be up a little way on the sh.o.r.e, that is, the side of the tub, or clinging to one of the plant-stems. When poked with a pencil,--and we were fearless about poking them, if the pencil were a long one,--they would half-walk, half-swim away. But mostly they lay pretty well concealed, waiting for something to happen. What would happen occasionally was this: a young May-fly or a water-beetle would come swimming or walking along; if it pa.s.sed an inch away from the dragon, all right; but if its path brought it closer, an extraordinary "catcher," rather like a pair of long nippers or tongs, would shoot out like a flash from the head of the dragon and seize on the unfortunate beastie. Then the "catcher"

would fold up in such a way as to bring the victim against the dragon's mouth, which is provided with powerful, sharp-toothed jaws.

These jaws then had their turn. And that was the end of the May-fly.

Mary was rather shocked when she saw the dragon first use its "catcher." She wanted to rescue the poor May-fly. But after all she has got pretty well used to seeing tragedies in insect life. They seem to be necessary and normal. Many insects depend upon other animals for food, just as we do. Only fortunately we don't have to catch and kill our own steer or pig or lamb or chicken. We turn the b.l.o.o.d.y business over to men who like--well, at least, who do it for us. But in the world of lower animals each one is usually his own butcher.

Mary soon wanted to see the dragon's "catcher," and so we dredged one out of Monday Pond, and put him on the study-table. As he faced us with his big eyes glaring from his broad heavy head, he looked very fierce. But curiously enough, he didn't seem to have any jaws; nor even a mouth. The whole front of his face was smooth and covered over by a sort of mask, so that his terrible jaws and catching nippers were invisible. However, we soon understood this. The mask was the folded-up "catcher" so disposed that it served, when not in use, actually to hide its own iniquity as well as that of the yawning mouth behind. Only when some small insect, all unsuspecting this smooth masked face, comes close, do the long tongs unfold, shoot out, and reveal the waiting jaws and thirsty throat. A veritable dragon indeed; sly and cruel and ever hungry for living prey.

One day when we were looking into Monday Pond, Mary saw a curious object that looked more like a hollow dragon than anything else. It had all the shape and size of one of the dragons; the legs and eyes and masked face, the pads on the back that looked like half-fledged wings. But there was a transparency and emptiness about it that was uncanny and ghost-like. Then, too, when we looked more closely there was a great rent down the back. And that made the mystery plain. The real dragon, the flesh and blood and breathing live dragon, had come out of that long tear, leaving his skin behind! It was his complete skin, too, back and sides and belly, out to the tips of his feelers and down to his toes and claws.

"But why should he shed his skin? Hasn't he any skin now?" asked Mary.

"Of course he must have a skin. How could he keep his blood in, and what would his muscles be fastened to, for he is a boneless dragon, and his skeleton is his outside sh.e.l.l, with his muscles fastened to it? So how could he live at all without a skin? He must have a new skin."

And, of course, that was exactly it. He had cast his old skin, as a snake does, and had got a brand-new one. Why shouldn't a dragon change his skin if a snake can?

But Mary is persistent about her "whys," and I was quite ready for her next question, which came after a moment of musing.

"Why should he shed his old skin and get a new one? Is the new one different; a different color or shape or something?"

"No; not a different color or different shape especially, but a different size. The dragon is growing up. He is like a boy who keeps on wearing age-nine clothes until they are too short in the sleeves, too tight in the back, and too high-water in the legs. Then one day he sheds his age-nine suit and gets an age-eleven one. See?"

"What a funny professor you are! Is that the way you lecture to your cla.s.ses?"

"Gracious, no, Mary! This is the way: As the immature dragon grows older, his constant a.s.similation of food tends to create a natural increase in size. But the comparative inelasticity of his chitinized cuticula prevents the actual expansion, to any considerable degree, of his body ma.s.s. Thus all the cells of the body become turgid, and altogether a great pressure is exerted outwards against the enclosing cuticular wall. This wall then suddenly splits along the longimesial line of the dorsum, and through this rent the dragon extricates itself in soft and defenceless condition, but of markedly larger size. The new cuticula, which is pale, elastic and thin at first, soon becomes thicker, strongly chitinized and dark. The old cuticle, or exuvia, which has been moulted, is curiously complete, and is a hollow or sh.e.l.l-like replica of the external appearance of the dragon even to the finest details. How is that, Mary?"

"Very instruct--instructing"--with an effort--"indeed," replies Mary, with grave face. "But I guess I understand the change from age-nine to age-eleven clothes better."

And then we saw the third wonderful happening in our dragon's life that I said we should tell about. We saw one of the dragons getting wings! That is, changing from an ugly, blackish, squat, crawling creature into a glorious long-bodied, rainbow-tinted, flying dragon.

Another dragon had crawled up above the water on a plant-stem and was also "moulting its chitinized cuticula." But it was coming out from the old skin in very different shape and color. I had forgotten, when I told Mary that they only changed in size after casting the skin, about the last moulting. Each dragon casts its skin several times in its life, but the last time it does it, it makes the wonderful change I've already spoken about, from crawling to flying dragon. And it was one of these last skin-castings that was going on now under our very eyes.

I can't describe all that happened. You must see it for yourself some time. How, out of the great rent in the old skin along the back, the soft damp body of the dragon squeezes slowly out, with its constant revelation of delicate changing color and its graceful new shape; how out of the odd shapeless pads on the back come four, long, narrow, s.h.i.+ning, transparent wings, with complex framework of fine little veins, or ribs, and thin flexible gla.s.sy membrane stretched over them; how the new head looks with its enormous, sparkling, iridescent eyes making nearly two-thirds of it and so cleverly fitted on the body that it can turn nearly entirely around on the neck. And then how the body fills out and takes shape, and the wings get larger and larger, and everything more and more beautifully colored! All this you will have to see for yourself some time when you have a Monday Pond in your own study, with a brood of dragons in.

"It _is_ wonderful, isn't it, Mary? How would you like to see twenty, thirty, forty, oh, a hundred dragons doing this all at once. We can if we want to. All we have to do is to go over to Lagunita some morning early, very early, just a little after sunrise--for that is their favorite time--and we shall see scores of dragons crawling up out of the water on stones, plants, sticks, anything convenient, and sloughing off their dirty, dark, old skins and coming out in their beautiful iridescent green and violet and purple new skins, with their long slender body and great flas.h.i.+ng wings. They sit quietly on the stones and plant-stems until the warm rising sun dries them and their new skins get firm and all nicely fitted, and then they begin their new life,--wheeling and das.h.i.+ng over the lake and among the hills and bushes and above the gra.s.ses and grain along the banks. Like eagles and hawks they are seeking their prey. Watch that little gnat buzzing there in the air. A flying dragon swoops by and there is no gnat there any longer. It has been caught in the curious basket-like trap which the dragon makes with its spiny legs all held together, and it is being crushed and chewed by the great jaws. Still a dragon, you see, for all of its new beauty!"

Mary muses. "Not all beautiful things in the world are good, are they?" she murmurs.

"Mary, you are a philosopher," I say.

As I read this over I realize quite as keenly, I hope, as you do, my reader, how little there is in this story. And yet finding out this little was real pleasure to Mary and me. Now we must perforce estimate the pleasures and pains, the likes and dislikes, of other people by our own. And however untrue this estimate may be for any one other person, it must be fairly true for any considerable number of persons. Therefore--and this is the reason for putting down our simple experiences with the insects for other people to read and perhaps to be stirred by to see and do similar things--therefore, I say, other people, some other people, also must be able to get pleasure from what we do.