THE GNATS' ATTENDANT 



in fields and the open places of woods, is often 

 dusted with these mites, which remind one of the 

 " fisherman's curse," or " smut," that dusts the pools 

 and back-waters of trout streams on hot summer 

 days, and even cold spring days. The minute smut, 

 only discerned by anglers with most prying eyes, is 

 relished by trout of daintiest appetite. Heavy fish 

 will cruise near the surface of the stream, sucking 

 down these smuts in preference to all other insects. 

 So tiny are some smuts that I have often studied 

 the movements of a large trout long and closely 

 before I could tell what it was rising at. But 

 neither the winter gnats, of which there are three or 

 four species, nor their minute attendants, seem to be 

 preyed on much by insect-eating birds. Now and 

 then a wren, working along the hedge-bottom, will 

 pop up into the air a foot or so to take a gnat, or 

 one of those cheironomi which dance in column ; and 

 earlier in the year, swallows, no doubt, flying low, 

 take these insects as they do the ephemerae over the 

 stream. But on the whole the winter gnats and 

 their companions dance in safety till the sun is down 

 and the moisture in the air begins to turn to dew, 

 when they retire for the night. Though the psy- 

 chodae of winter so closely attend the gnat column, 

 dancing on the same plane, they do not actually mix 

 with their friends. They keep near but distinct, as 

 often a flock of greenfinches keeps distinct from a 

 flock of chaffinches, feeding at the same stack or 

 seed-sprinkled patch of ground. What end is 

 served by this attendance of psychoda on gnat we 



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