JIOTIONS OF INSECTS. 369 



parties often or a dozen, near the bank, where some 

 little projection forms a ba}^ or renders the water 

 particularly tranquil ; and here they will circle round 

 each other without contention, each in his sphere, 

 and with no apparent object, from morning until 

 night, with great sprightliness and animation ; and so 

 lightly do they move on the fluid, as to form only 

 some faint and transient circles on its surface. Very 

 fond of society, we seldom see them alone, or, if 

 parted by accident, they soon rejoin their busy com- 

 panions. One pool commonly affords space for the 

 amusement of several parties ; yet they do not unite 

 or contend, but perform their cheerful circlings in 

 separate family associations. If we interfere with 

 their merriment they seem greatly alarmed, disperse, 

 or dive to the bottom, where their fears shortly sub- 

 side, as we soon again see our little merry friends 

 gamboling as before. This plain, tiny, gliding water- 

 llea seems a very unlikely creature to arrest our young 

 attentions ; but the boy with his angle has not often 

 much to engage his notice, and the social active par- 

 ties of this nimble swimmer, presenting themselves 

 at these periods of vacancy, become insensibly fa- 

 miliar to his sight, and by many of us are not ob- 

 served in after-life without recalling former hours, 

 scenes of, perhaps, less anxious days ; for trifles like 

 these, by reason of some association, are often remem- 

 bered, when things of greater moment pass off and 

 leave no trace upon the mind.* 



" The gyrinus," say Kirby and Spence, " seems 

 the merriest and most agile of all the inhabitants of 

 the waves. Wonderful is the velocity with which 

 they turn round and round, as it were pursuing each 

 other in incessant circles, sometimes movmg in 

 oblique, and indeed in every other direction. Now 

 and then they repose on the surface as if fatigued with 

 * Journal of a Naturalist, p. 307. 



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