out with a proud air his brown abdomen, which seemed formed of rings of shell; and while he was indulging in the admiration of himself and his powers, the sharp eyes of Piccolissima discovered that these circles were not, as we should say, soldered together, but were lying on a flexible membrane, or thin skin, which held them in their place, and which was folded up or extended at the will of the insect. On either side, between each ring, there was in this membrane a little oval hole, smaller than those which, near the cavities of the corselet, emitted and modulated the buzzing sound which Piccolissima had just heard; these openings enabled the insect to breathe.

"You have many ways of speaking," the little girl said at last, with a sigh; "but covered as you are all over with brilliant armor, how can you touch any thing?"

The fly, who was at this moment digesting his dinner, and who did not like any interruption in any of his affairs, put forth his trunk without making any reply, shook a little the small beard that grew upon it, did the same with his antennae, rounded at the ends like little cushions, and furnished with feathery hair; then stretched forth his legs, as if yawning. Piccolissima comprehended that the two little cushions which ornamented the extreme end of the foot of the fly, in which she counted five joints, might easily possess the sense of touch, and that this also rendered them more useful for motion, and for the toilet; it was like so many intelligent brushes, all ready to perceive and sweep away the least grain of dust. The little beards she also thought might have the power of taste, like the antennae, at the same time that they listened to sounds.

"This young fly is doubtless your son," said Piccolissima to the insect which had taken his place on her neck, in order that the warmth might help digestion, without asking whether or not his nails might tickle the little girl.

"What! hast thou not seen directly that we were not relations? but I see how it is; I pity you, poor imperfect being with only two eyes and one mouth, and no trunk," answered the fly. "It is natural that thou hast only a superficial knowledge. This little upstart who devours the sugar as if he did not mean to leave any of it for any one else, this little person, who has but a few minutes ago escaped from his shell, yet hanging to a dead rose leaf long since forgotten as it lay there on the window, has not, as I have, four beautiful black streaks on his corselet. The white spots on his back offend the eye; I prefer the modest color of my brown rings, and the soft shade of the color of the faded leaf on a portion of my wings does not contribute less to the majesty of my aspect than the colored feathers which ornament my antennae. As for me, I am the domestic fly."

"I was wrong not to have remarked the differences which strike me now," said the child; "but what does this young scapegrace mean by what he says of metamorphoses, and countless legs?"

"Yes, yes; that is well known; his race lives upon hairy prey; in my opinion there is nothing to boast of in that. Although thou knowest, it seems to me, very few things, still I think thou art not ignorant, of course, that parents place their offspring where it is best. The mother of this fly of the rose bush laid her egg in the midst of the flock which was to nourish her little one. This one came into the world in the shape of a worm."

"Why dost thou shudder?" grumbled angrily the fly. "This form is as good as any other; call this worm larva if it suits thy fancy; he has still to each of his fourteen rings three little feet; but he has not such elegant members as mine, a haunch, a thigh, a leg, and an instep with five joints." While speaking, the old fly displayed pompously one of his legs, which he began immediately to caress with the edge of his lips, because he saw a grain of dust on one of the small hairs.

"But," perseveringly asked Piccolissima, who wished to hear the history of the fly to the end, "who are these little flocks in the midst of which your friend has passed his early days?"

"They are the little red or green grubs which infest the rose bush; these he pierces and grinds up with his teeth, and sucks them up with his strange mouth one after another as he moves slowly among them upon those forty-two roots of feet, of which he is so vain, for I maintain that they cannot be called legs, or any thing like legs."

"You, then," said the little girl, "have better formed members."

The fly, who remembered that he had not at all better limbs, looked suddenly wearied with the conversation, and shaking his wings, flew away to the window.

"Of what color were you formerly?" asked the little girl of her only remaining companion; "you, who are now of such a pretty shade of brilliant green and bronze?"

"Me! I was of a pretty tender green. Weary of living on the ground, I took the resolution to retire from the world. I shut myself up in my skin, which soon became hard enough to serve for my retreat. My house was carried, I know not how, to that spot not far from you; I know not what artificial heat acted on me. I came to the belief that the time had come for me to spread my wings, and I uncovered the roof of my house in order that I might know what had been done during my absence. They call me the rose fly."

As he finished saying these words, the fly, quite satisfied, joined his companion in the window. Piccolissima was grieved that she could not follow them; she listened attentively to the noise they made in flying, and could distinguish musical tones. But, fatigued at last by this long tension of her mind, gradually her ideas became vague and wandering, her little blond head fell upon her arms, and she dropped asleep and dreamed.

She dreamed that her two new friends, the flies, returned, accompanied by an innumerable troop of winged insects. Each one carried something, one a blade of grass, another a stalk of a plant, another a petal, another a pistil. Two large beetles, with immense horns or talons, dragged along small branches loaded with flowers, such as Piccolissima had never seen.

All this troop set themselves to work and constructed the most charming, the lightest little aerial car that one can possibly imagine. A great fly, bristling with fine hairs, extended four strong wings, and raising his voice, invited Piccolissima to mount, and at the same time politely offered her his paw.

The little girl accepted the invitation, and found herself immediately transported into the corolla of a beautiful white lily. There she found a throne prepared for her. Very skilful little paws lightly tickled her arms, and then her feet, in order to call her attention to the labors of invisible waiting maids, who were about dressing her in a robe of white velvet, cut out of the petals of a white camellia, confined round the waist by a turquoise clasp, borrowed from the myosotis.

A stamen of the lily served her for a sceptre; she took her seat; a rose leaf hung for a canopy over her head; the bells of the lily of the valley and the campanula sent forth their joyous chime. The bladder senna filled the air with the noise of its bursting petards. The artillery of the prickly furze played on both sides of the throne as the nations of flies approached to pay their homage to the queen.

To the cries of vivat, uttered with enthusiasm, Piccolissima replied by inclining her sceptre; a golden rain fell from it, and was eagerly gathered up by the surrounding crowds of humming courtiers, whose shouts and acclamations filled the air.

The young sovereign then had to endure a long and grave discourse from a fat drone bee who did not understand himself.

Ere long the little queen learned that her empire was in danger. Dreadful enemies menaced the frontiers. "They are spiders," said the flies. "They are the larvae of the rose bushes," said the grubs. "They are the ichneumons," cried a crowd of winged insects.

Every one accused some other one. Piccolissima did not know what to understand, but