May has something here for us to look at. She says it is a slippery
rascal. Let us see it. Oh, yes, you have it in that little box. See, the
box has a glass top. May cut the top off the box herself, and fastened
in a little pane of glass so we could see the rascal without danger of
its escaping.
[Illustration]
Pretty rascal! Like a little silver fish slipping about the box.
Yes, Charlie, it is called the silver fish. A land fish? Why, yes, it
would be a land fish if it were a fish at all. But in spite of its name
it is no fish. It is covered with shining scales, though, that are very
much like fish scales, and it is shaped a good deal like a fish.
Oh, yes, it is an insect. You see it has six legs. But it has no wings.
No, it is not a young one.
It never will have any wings, no matter how old it may get to be.
It is flat, you see, and its scales make it very slippery, so that it is
hard to catch and yet harder to hold on to after you have caught it. It
goes flashing about like a little silver dart, and it loves to eat
starch.
That is why May calls it a rascal. It eats the starch from the paste
that fastens on her wall paper, and from book-bindings, so you see it
makes things fall to pieces. But my! what a pretty rascal it is! Besides
its name of silver fish, it is also called fish moth, though it is not a
moth at all. It is also called bristle-tail, because of the long,
bristle-like parts at the end of its body; and in some places it is
called a slink, because, you know, it loves dark places, and when you
uncover it in the daytime, it slips around a corner into the dark again.
Yes, it seems to slink about as if it were ashamed of itself, but it is
not ashamed; it does not like the light, and it does not like us to see
it.
Perhaps it is afraid of us.