Part 18

One year, however, there was an unusually dry summer, and in order to find sufficient water she had to move from peat-hole to peat-hole, and often had to live for weeks at a time in the pools left in the deeper hollows. Fortunately for her, as the water sank, all the inhabitants of the bog gradually came together in these basins. She came across perch and carp; and eels, leeches and toads were also, like herself, imprisoned here, until the rain should once more bring an abundance of water.

She continued to develop, but otherwise than before; ferocity and cruelty were replaced by cunning and ingenuity. And like all the other pike in the bog, she soon learned to swing herself over the ridges from one hole to another, and even to cross land for short distances.

She had the choice between dying of hunger and finding an expedient.

It seemed as if that passage, long ago, from the flying heron’s beak to the smooth surface of the water had hardened her gills and enabled them to bear the strong, drying oxygen of the air for a longer time; for she often ventured over ridges and peat-dams wider than a high-road.

When she could bear her hunger no longer, she ran herself aground and up into the grass, and then, bending herself together, leaped on in the direction of the new water. As soon as she was in the dry air, she could feel which way she ought to take; the neighbourhood of water affected her sensitive skin and drew her the shortest way. Everything flickered in a golden mist before her eyes, as she crept on, bending and leaping.

It was in the early hours of morning, when the grass was wet with dew, that she made these expeditions overland.

On one of these occasions she got into a large, deep pit, where the crayfish population that annually migrated from the lake had their stronghold. All over the perpendicular, blackened sides of the peat-cutting living crayfish claws opened at her.

Day after day for six months she went hunting here, and had enough to do with making her way into the hard, perpendicular walls in which the nippers had their holes. She knew from her experience in the lake that the crayfish could neither steer nor change their course when, with flapping tail, they darted backwards through the water, and were therefore easily caught when once she had hunted them out.

Only one ancient, mussel-scarred fellow, coal-black all over, and with one large and one very tiny claw, eluded her most ardent endeavours. It sat in a rocky hole, far in, its spear-armed head with the stalked eyes resting pensively upon its two unequal claws.

Once or twice it happened that she was aroused from her torpor at night by feeling a firm, hard grasp upon her body, and she darted round in a circle like a dog after its tail; but the Nipper always knew when to let go.

One day she was also obliged to leave this hole. She managed to break down the ridge between her and a neighbouring pit, where she enjoyed a few months’ ease and comfort. Here she passed the winter, and cleared the mud of every tench, every leech, and every snail.

When spring came she ate everything that came in her way. At this season frogs and toads made their way in multitudes to the pools. The frogs lay croaking and croaking, and the toads barked and growled, all of them full of love and delight, and therefore an easy prey.

Later on she revelled in frogs’ eggs, and swallowed great quantities of the fat, black yolks. Sometimes, too, she could feast on some long threads that were stretched about the reed-stubble; they were the eggs of the big toads, threaded like beads upon a string, and laid in the water to hatch.

On the whole she was glad of the frogs and toads; they kept on reappearing, afterwards too, when the little tadpoles began to swarm.

She could no longer afford to be fastidious; she had to take everything, and not let a crumb be wasted.

During the summer nights she was busy at the surface. The big, heavy moths, which often, in thoughtlessness or carelessness, settled on the water or on some floating straw, became her booty. She ate them, wings, straw and all, like a hungry man trying to satisfy his appetite with prawns.

No wonder that the teeth in her huge mouth gradually developed into something like the whalebone in the mouth of a whale

But a stomach with the cubic capacity of a hectolitre needed more than this!

The bog is veiled in a steaming mist, which hangs like cloud-lakes over the reeds. The moisture penetrates everywhere, and trembling drops hang from everything; and the thousands upon thousands of spiders’ webs show up in all their marvellous workmanship.

Thickets of willow and drooping birches cast black shadows all along the ridges and banks, and large, thick swarms of gnats hang silently in the air. Only a leaping fish or a bathing swallow disturbs the deep morning stillness.

The great bog-snail, with its horse-like head and bat-like ears, has come out of its shell and is feeling everything that comes within its reach, groping its way along, and then with a jerk dragging its spiral shell after it. Now it fastens itself to a little dead fish and sucks out its eyes, and finally comes to rest upon the broad leaf of an iris, the point of its shell still trembling with the movement of the water.

A boat-bug that has grown tired, and drawn in its oars, also composes itself to rest. Slowly it sinks to the bottom of the water, where it settles down comfortably and with discrimination among caddis-worms, planorbis, and young salamanders. Even a water-beetle that is in a hurry and, with its head in the mud, is fussing about everywhere, is roughly tossed aside by the powerful palpi.

Up on the clear surface swims the grebe. Its back is dark, the head, with the beautiful ruffle round its neck, poised high; but breast and belly are a glistening slivery white. It never goes on shore, never even ventures into shallow water; for it must be where it can dive without hindrance. On its back it carries its tiny young, holding its wings protectingly round them as they lie buried in its back-feathers as in a cushioned hollow.

The male swims beside them and dives after food, which he puts into the gaping mouths of the young as they chirp and flap their little stumpy wings.

Grim knows the divers well, and they know her--or so, at least, they think.

This morning, however, in her insatiable hunger, she sets her teeth into a webbed foot and upsets the little boat, so that all the young ones fall out. With the greatest possible speed she gulps down the whole flock, and then, more or less appeased, goes to the bottom, having learnt feathers do not disagree with her at all.

Until next morning she found herself just as hungry again.

Then she was fortunate enough to gain fresh experience about feathers.