Part II Chapter 5 Doctor Dolittle's Garden by Hugh Lofting
THE WATER BEETLE
This next experiment which we made in insect language was entirely different from any we had conducted so far and turned out to be one of the most successful. It was much more like our research work in shellfish speech than anything we had done so far. By perfecting and extending the apparatus we had used for aquatic and marine creatures we managed to establish very good contact with the water beetle. His conversation was quite plain and John Dolittle seemed to have very little difficulty in following what he was trying to say. This surprised me somewhat because he never seemed to stay still an instant, but was for ever flying and shooting around this glass jar in which the Doctor kept him; now swimming freely in the clear water; now burrowing into the mud at the bottom; now perching on a water plant and polishing his nose with his front feet.
After the Doctor had conveyed to him what it was he wanted to know, he told us the following story:
"It is about our travelling you want to know, huh!—Well, of course being able to swim and walk and fly, we do a good deal of touring. But this, I fancy, is not what you would call travelling. It is all short-distance work, though much of it is very interesting. We water beetles are very fortunate, I suppose, since there are hardly any animals that care to fight with us. The big pickerel and pike are about our only dangerous enemies; they have to be quite hungry before they will consider us good eating. I have occasionally had to leave the water and take to my wings when being chased by these ferocious fish and have even had to leave one pond or stream altogether, when they had become too numerous, and seek other water homes. But those times were happily rare. The first occasion that I took a really big journey was on the foot of a duck."
At this point the Doctor stopped the proceedings, fearing that he might not have heard aright.
"A journey on the foot of a duck?" he asked. "I don't quite understand. Would you mind explaining that?"
"Certainly," said the water beetle. "It is quite simple. You see, when we are not out swimming freely in the water in search of food we usually work our way down into the mud below, to the depth of, say, half an inch to two inches. This often enables us to hide away from the fish of prey who cannot dig for us. We are really very safe. Few water beetles ever fall victims to their enemies in their own element.
"But I and a friend of mine were once carried off from our native pond and transported an enormous distance—well, as I told you, on the foot of a duck. Our pond was away out in a lonely marshy stretch of country where few people ever came. Those who did, came in the Fall and Winter to shoot ducks. Of ducks there we had plenty, also every other kind of wild fowl—snipe, geese, plovers, redshanks, curlews, herons and what not. Even of these we water beetles were not afraid. We only had to burrow into the mud an inch or two and we were usually safe. But we didn't like the ducks. They used to come in from the sea and descend upon our pond in thousands at night-time. And such a quacking and a stirring up of the water they made! They'd gobble up the weeds like gluttons and any small fish such as fresh water shrimps or other pond creatures they could lay hold of.
"One night I and a friend of mine were swimming around peacefully and suddenly he said:
"'Look out!—Ducks!—I saw their shadow crossing the moon. Get down into the mud.'
"I took his advice right away. Together we burrowed into the mud without any further argument. The water over us was barely above three inches deep. In hundreds the ducks descended. Even below the surface of the mud we could hear their commotion and clatter. How they paddled and stirred around!
"Then suddenly—Bang! Bang!
"Some sportsmen near by who had laid in wait for them had opened fire. We had heard this happen before; and we were always glad because the sportsmen drove the ducks away and left our pond in peace.
"For part of what happened next I have to rely on another water beetle who chanced to return to our pond just at the moment when the sportsmen opened fire. Because of course, I and my friend, being below the mud, could neither see nor hear anything.
"Ducks were dropping in all directions, splashing into the water—some wounded, some killed outright. It was a terrible slaughter. Some of them who had been cruising in the water near where we were rose instantly on the first shot and were killed a few feet above the surface of the pond. But one it seems was sort of late in getting up and that very likely saved his life; for while the sportsmen were reloading their guns he got away. The water as I have told you was very shallow just there and he was actually standing on the muddy bottom, wading. As he gave a jump to take off, his broad webbed feet sank into the mud an inch or two. And he took to the air with a big cake of mud on each foot. I and my friend were in those cakes of mud.
"Now this species of duck, which was not an ordinary or common one, was apparently about to make its migration flight that night. The flight was in fact already in progress and the flock had stopped at our pond to feed on its way. With this alarm the remainder of the ducks at once headed out to sea.
"As for me, I had no idea for some moments of what had happened. And I could not communicate with my friend because he was on one of the duck's feet and I was on the other. But with the rushing of the wind and the quick drying of the mud, I soon realized that something very unusual was taking place. Before the mud dried entirely hard I burrowed my way to the surface of the cake and took a peep outside.
"I saw then that I was thousands of feet up in the air. And from the shimmer of starlight on wide water far, far below, I gathered that I was being carried over the sea. I confess I was scared. For a moment I had a notion to scramble out and take to my own wings. But the duck's enormous speed warned me that we were probably already many miles from land. Even supposing that I could tell which direction to go back in—I knew of course nothing of this big-scale navigation such as birds use in their long nights—I was afraid of the powerful winds that were rushing by us. In strength, my own wings were not made for doing battle with such conditions.
"No, it was clear that whether I liked it or no I had got to stay where I was for the present. It was certainly a strange accident to happen to anyone, to be picked out of his native haunts and carried across the sea to foreign lands on the feet of a duck!
"My great fear now was that the mud might drop off in midnight and go splashing down into the sea with me inside it. As a precaution against this I kept near to the hole I had made to look out through, so that I would be able to take to my own wings if necessary. Through this I nearly froze to death. The rushing of the cold air was terrific. My goodness, what a speed that duck kept up! I drew back into the inner shelter of the mud cake. I knew that so long as I could hear that droning deafening whirl of the duck's wings that I was still attached to my flying steed.
"Pretty soon now the mud got so hard that any further drilling through it was out of the question. But as I had already made myself a little chamber runway by turning round and round in it before it hardened completely, I was quite comfortable so far as that was concerned. I remember as I peeped out of my little window—nearly freezing my nose—I saw the dawn come up over the sea. It was a wonderful sight; at that great height the sun's rays reached us long before they touched the sea. The ocean stretched, gloomy, black and limitless, beneath us while the many-coloured eastern sky glowed and reflected on the myriads of ducks who were flying along beside mine, necks outstretched, glowing golden and pink—all headed towards their new homeland.
"I was glad to see the day arrive for more reasons than one. It made the air warmer. And I could now see if any land were to come in sight.
"I was still very anxious about getting dropped into the sea. Once we got over land of any kind I would feel happier. The ducks started honking to one another as they saw the dawn. It almost seemed as though they were exchanging signals as conversation of some kind, because I suddenly saw that they somewhat changed direction following a leader, a single duck, who flew at the head of the V-shaped flock."