2 STREAM BUGS

CHAPTER 2 STREAM BUGS Sassafras ran by my heels and meowed up at me. I could tell that he was especially excited to head to the stream today after all my talk of bug-hunting. "If you promise not to eat them, I'll show you

檫树从我的脚跟边跑过，朝我喵喵叫着。 我能看出来，在我谈了那么多捉虫的事之后，他今天特别兴奋地要去河边。 “如果你保证不吃它们，我就给你看

some of my favorite stream bugs," I told him. Sassafras tilted his head to the side, like he was considering my offer. I really hoped he could resist gobbling up the poor stream bugs. Whenever he spies a bug, his tail gets all twitchy. He's always trying to eat them, and I'm always trying to save them! "You'll be able to see their neat little gills flutter like hummingbird wings. It's pretty cool, Sassafras. The mayfly babies have seven rows of gills down the sides of their bodies. They beat up and down to move the water around and grab teeny tiny bubbles of air out of the water." I took a deep breath. "I do like having lungs, but sometimes I wish I had gills so I could live underwater. Don't you?" Sassafras' eyes got big. He was probably thinking of all the bugs he'd get to eat if he could breathe underwater. When we got to the stream, I set all of my supplies on the sandy shore. Today was nice and warm. A perfect day to hunt for stream bugs. The water sparkled as the sun reflected off the ripples in the stream. Wait a minute. Was part of the stream

一些我最喜欢的小溪虫，”我告诉他。 萨萨法斯把头歪向一边，好像在考虑我的提议。 我真希望他能忍住不把可怜的溪水虫吃掉。 每当他发现虫子时，他的尾巴就会抽搐。 他总是想吃掉它们，而我总是想救它们！“你可以看到它们整洁的小腮像蜂鸟的翅膀一样拍打着。 蛮酷的，黄樟。 蜉蝣宝宝身体两侧有七排鳃。 它们上下拍打以移动周围的水，并从水中抓取微小的气泡。” 我深吸了一口气。“我确实喜欢有肺，但有时我希望我有腮，这样我就可以在水下生活了。 你不?”黄樟的眼睛变大了。 他可能在想，如果他能在水下呼吸，他就能吃到很多虫子了。 当我们到达小溪时，我把所有的补给品放在沙滩上。 今天很暖和。这是捕捉溪流虫的好天气。 阳光反射在小溪的涟漪上，水面闪闪发光。 等一下。是溪流的一部分吗

sparkling in rainbow colors? I took a few steps closer and squinted in the sunlight. But I couldn't see the rainbow anymore. "Huh. I'm so desperate to find magic today, I guess I'm seeing things!" I said to Sassafras. He peered up at me and blinked. I looked one more time, but the stream seemed normal again. I shrugged and took off my shoes, rolled up my pants, and grabbed my underwater viewer. "It's bug time!" I exclaimed as I marched into the stream. Sassafras must have been distracted by the thought of bugs because he followed me. But when the tip of his front paw touched the stream water, he jumped sideways and shook his paw like crazy! He squeezed his eyes closed tight and jumped around a bunch more with his ears flat against his head. I couldn't help but laugh as he flipped and flopped about. Sassafras seriously hates getting wet. Apparently even more than he loves eating bugs. Sassafras climbed a nearby tree and scowled down at me.

闪烁着彩虹般的色彩？ 我走近几步，眯着眼睛在阳光下看。 但是我再也看不到彩虹了。 “嗯。我今天太渴望找到魔法了，我想我看到了一些东西！”我对黄樟说。 他抬头看了我一眼，眨了眨眼睛。 我又看了一遍，溪水似乎又恢复了正常。 我耸耸肩，脱下鞋子，卷起裤子，抓起我的水下观测器。 “虫时间到了！”我一边大步走进小溪一边叫道。 萨萨法斯一定是被虫子的想法分散了注意力，因为他跟着我。 但是当它的前爪尖碰到溪水时，它向旁边跳去，疯狂地摇晃着前爪！他紧紧地闭上眼睛，把耳朵贴在头上，又跳了一圈。 他翻来翻去的时候，我忍不住笑了。 黄樟非常讨厌被弄湿。 显然比他更喜欢吃虫子。 萨萨法斯爬上附近的一棵树，怒视着我。

I grabbed the little tub I'd brought and filled it with some stream water. "I'll put the mayfly babies in here, Sassafras. That way I can bring them on shore to show you. But remember. No eating!" I pressed the plastic-wrapped side of my underwater viewer into the water and peered through the tube. I could see the bottom of the stream really clearly. Ooh, a rock as big as Sassafras' head! There ought to be at least five or six stream bugs clinging to the bottom of that one. I flipped it over and saw... nothing? Huh. That was weird. The rock was perfect for stream bugs! I shrugged and used my underwater viewer to find another big rock. No bugs.

我拿起我带来的小盆，装了一些溪水。 “我要把蜉蝣宝宝放在这里，萨萨弗拉斯。 这样我就可以把它们带上岸给你看。 但请记住。不吃!”我把我的水下观察器的塑料包裹的一面压进水里，透过管子往外看。 我可以很清楚地看到小溪的底部。 哦，一块和黄樟头一样大的石头！至少有五六只臭虫粘在那只船的底部。 我把它翻过来，看到…… 没有什么?嗯。这很奇怪。 这块岩石对溪流虫来说是完美的！我耸耸肩，用我的水下观察器找到了另一块大石头。 没有错误。

"What is going on?" I muttered. I investigated rock after rock after rock, but I couldn't find a single mayfly baby. I did, however, find a lot of algae. It was cold and slimy, and I had to keep flicking my hands to get it off. I also found some wormlike things oozing along the bottoms of the rocks. I poked at them a little, but they weren't as interesting to watch as my fluttering, gilled mayfly babies.

“发生了什么事？”我嘟囔着。 我找了一块又一块岩石，但我找不到一只蜉蝣宝宝。 然而，我确实发现了很多藻类。 它又冷又黏，我不得不不停地用手把它弄掉。 我还在岩石底部发现了一些蠕虫状的东西。 我戳了戳它们，但它们的样子不如我那飞舞的、有鳃的蜉蝣宝宝有趣。

"Sassafras? Do you think the mayfly babies somehow turned into adult mayflies all at once?" I called up to him. "Mayflies start as eggs, and then the eggs hatch underwater and the little mayfly babies crawl out. They live in the stream for a long time until they get bigger and shed their skin." I shivered. The shedding skin thing always kind of freaked me out. "When they get rid of their skin at the top of the water, they crawl out, and boom — they have wings. Maybe they did that all at once or something?" I looked around and didn't see any flying bugs. But then again, mayfly adults only live for a day or so, which is so unfair. If I lived all my life underwater and woke up with wings one day, I'd want more than one day to fly around. "OK, fine. Maybe all the mayfly babies have flown away. I'll just find you a caddisfly baby, Sassafras. They are also super cool. You can't really see their gills, but they build homes on their backs out of mud and rocks or leaves or twigs, and then they can hide inside like a hermit crab hides inside its shell."

“黄樟?你认为蜉蝣宝宝会不会一下子就变成了成年蜉蝣？”我向他喊道。 “蜉蝣从卵开始，然后卵在水下孵化，小蜉蝣宝宝爬出来。 它们会在小溪里生活很长一段时间，直到它们长大并蜕皮。” 我不禁打了个哆嗦。脱落的皮肤总是让我有点害怕。 “当它们在水面上脱掉皮肤时，它们就会爬出来，砰的一声——它们长出了翅膀。 也许他们是一下子就这么做了？”我环顾四周，没有看到任何飞虫。 但话说回来，成年蜉蝣只能活一天左右，这太不公平了。 如果我一生都生活在水下，有一天带着翅膀醒来，我希望不止一天能到处飞。 “好了,好了。也许所有的蜉蝣宝宝都飞走了。 我会给你找个球童的，萨萨弗拉斯。 它们也超级酷。你看不见它们的鳃，但它们用泥土、岩石、树叶或小树枝在背上建造家园，然后它们可以藏在里面，就像寄居蟹藏在壳里一样。”