FLIGHT OF OUR HOBBY. 13 



May Fly we would beg thee to recognise our symbolic hobby ; a 

 hobby, we confess it, whereat even under her imposing name, 

 Entomology, all her sister-ologies were once in the habit of 

 kicking up their heels, as they left her disdainfully in the rear. 

 Of late, however, she has been gaining ground, and now promises 

 to keep up with the proudest jade among her fellows. But 

 without invidious comparisons, let us proceed to put her through 

 her paces, and show how in pursuit of " charming variety " she 

 carries us through roads as varied. Now, like an ambling palfrey, 

 she bears us over flowery meadows ; now, like a flying Pegasus, 

 mounts with us through air ; now descends beneath earth's 

 surface ; then, plunging in the stream, opens to us new worlds 

 beneath the waters. In these her endowments, of amphibious 

 character, we may notice the first points of resemblance between 

 the features of our favourite and the habits of the May Fly 

 Day Fly, we also call her, and so she is, in her brief career 

 through the summer sky ; but before she has ever fluttered or 

 had wings to flutter in air, each May Fly has lived in earth, aye, 

 and under water, caverned in the bank of her native streamlet, 

 where at present she abides. The comparison holds good 

 still further; no Ephemera can now disport itself in air, 

 nor in the fields of air is there now much of pleasant pasture 

 for our hobby ; but the Day Fly of next May is in no want of 

 food or doubtless of enjoyment, though confined to earth and 

 water; and in these does our hobby still possess an ample 

 supply of winter exercise and provender. 



