PLUMED GNATS. 59 



a tale of early spring, belied by the bitter east, which often 

 tells us another story when we turn from their sheltered saloon 

 of assembly. In this sense, however, these are not the only 

 Tell-tales of their kind, for quite as common, at the same 

 season, are some other parties of aerial dancers, one of which 

 we fell in with soon after we had taken leave of the first. 

 These were tiny sylphs with black bodies and wings of snow- 

 white gauze, and like " choice spirits, black, white, and grey/' 

 (for they wore plumes of the latter colour,) they were greeting 

 the still New Year with mirth and revelry, and that over a 

 frozen pool, whose icy presence one would have fancied quite 

 enough for their instant annihilation. But though (warmed 

 by exercise) these merry mates care so little for the cold 

 without, they are glad enough, when occasion serves, to profit 

 by the shelter of our windows. In ours we often watch them, 

 and you, good reader, had better seek for them, unless you 

 would miss the sight of as pretty and elegant a little creature 

 as any one could desire to look at on a fine summer's, much 

 more a winter's, day. We have spoken of the plumes of these 

 winged revellers, black, white, and grey, which dance in the 

 air as merrily as the Quaker's wife in the song ; but here be it 

 observed, that our Gnats' wives, with real quaker-like sobriety, 

 rarely, if ever, dance at all, and never by any accident wear 

 feathers. They may do worse, as we shall perhaps discover 

 by-and-by, but as for plumes (in poetic parlance "feathered 

 antlers," in scientific " pectinate antenna") these are decora- 



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