A REAL POND. 103

were to put him into the pond with the baby tadpoles, he would
put his long oars round them, hug them to death, and then
feast upon them. But there is another thing we must have, if
we want to keep the water clear—some snails.”

Father made several quick sweeps of the net through the
weeds, and brought out a good many shells, of a dusky gold or
brown colour—and some curly black ones.

“Poor snails!” said Mousie, ‘how did so many of them
fall in?”

Father had dropped them all carefully into the bottle, and
he called his little girl to look. Instead of being drowned and
dead, the snails were beginning to poke their heads out of their
shells and to crawl about, sticking on to the sides of the bottle
and gliding quickly over the glass. They seemed to be quite
comfortable.

“They don’t look drowned, do they?” said father. “ Look
at this large one; his head has two broad-pointed things like
fins on it instead of horns shaped like pins, as a land snail
would have. You can see that he is a water-creature from
that.”

“ Then they didn’t fall in by accident ?” said Mousie.

“No. They were born in the water on purpose to live in
it,” said father. ‘Why, do you think? To prevent the weed, by
eating it, from growing too fast and filling up the pond alto-
gether. That is why we must take some home for your little
pond ; because small weeds would soon begin to grow all over
the glass and make it look dim and green. The snails will
prevent that by feeding on them as fast as they can. The
tadpoles will eat weeds, too, for the present.”

‘What will the efts eat?” said Mousie.

“They will. eat worms—and I am rather afraid that they
will pounce on the young tadpoles as soon as they come out of