1 HISTORY OF 



chalk, which being of a soft and pliant nature, 

 gives them an opportunity of sinking a retreat 

 for themselves, where nothing but the claws of a 

 cray-fish can possibly molest them. The worm 

 afterwards changes its form. It appears with a 

 large head, and a tail invested with hair, and 

 moistened with an oleaginous liquor, which she 

 makes use of as a cork, to sustain her head in the 

 air, and her tail in the water, and to transport 

 her from one place to another. When the oil 

 with which her tail is moistened begins to grow 

 dry, she discharges out of her mouth an unctuous 

 humour, which she sheds all over her tail, by vir- 

 tue whereof she is enabled to transport herself 

 where she pleases, without being either wet or 

 any ways incommoded by the water. The gnat 

 in her second state is, properly speaking, in her 

 form of a nymph, which is an introduction or en- 

 trance into a new life. In the first place, she di- 

 vests herself of her second skin -, in the next she 

 resigns her eyes, her antennae, and her tail ; in 

 short, she actually seems to expire. However, 

 from the spoils of the amphibious animal, a little 

 winged insect cuts the air, whose every part is 

 active to the last degree, and whose whole struc- 

 ture is the just object of our admiration. Its little 

 head is adorned with a plume of feathers, and its 

 whole body invested with scales and hair to se- 

 cure it from any wet or dust. She makes trial of 

 the activity of her wings, by rubbing them either 

 against her body or her broad side-bags, which 

 keep her in an equilibrium. The furbelow, or 

 little border of fine feathers, which graces her 



