216 THE WATER-FLEA. 



about the month of April, if the weather be tolerably 

 mild, we see gamboling upon the surface of the shel- 

 tered pool ; and every schoolboy, who has angled for a 

 minnow in the brook, is well acquainted with this merry 

 swimmer in his shining black jacket. Retiring in the 

 autumn, and reposing all the winter in the mud at the 

 bottom of the pond, it awakens in the spring, rises to 

 the surface, and commences its summer sports. They 

 associate in small parties of ten or a dozen, near the 

 bank, where some little projection forms a bay, or ren- 

 ders 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 ac- 

 cident, they soon rejoin their busy companions. 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 as- 

 sociations. If we interfere with their merriment they 

 seem greatly alarmed, disperse, or dive to the bottom, 

 where their fears shortly subside, as we soon again see 

 our little merry friends gamboling as before. 



This lively little animal, arising from its winter re- 

 treat shortly after the frog, at times in March, continues 

 its gambols all the summer long, remaining visible 

 generally until the middle of October, thus enjoying a 

 full seven months of being ; a long period of existence 

 for insects, which are creatures subject to so many con- 

 tingencies, that their lives appear to be commonly but 

 brief, and the race continued by successive productions. 

 All these water creatures must be endowed with much 

 perception. Cold as this element is in early spring, 

 when the ice of winter is hardly dissolved, and the fluid 

 only 6 or 7 degrees above freezing, yet they become 

 immediately sensible of this temperature, and are ex- 

 cited to animation and the vocations of their being. I 

 have never observed the larvae of this creature in any 

 state. When they retire in the autumn, these insects 



