THE EPHEMERA 103 



once thought to be comprised within the limits 

 of a single day. How delicate are its gauzy 

 wings ; how wonderful are the iridescent tints 

 which play over their surface with a changeful 

 radiance, like that of the opal on the pigeon's 

 neck ; and how marvellous is the muscular power 

 which enables the new-born being to disport 

 itself in the air for a period which in comparison 

 with our own lives is equal to at . least forty 

 years! It never seems to weary. It wavers up 

 and down, up and down in the air, together with 

 myriads of its companions, and for the greater 

 portion of its terrestrial existence is an inhabitant 

 of the air ; yet its life has not altogether been 

 spent in amusing itself, for it has passed an 

 existence of some three years or more hidden 

 from human gaze. 



1 To-day it is a bright denizen of the sunbeams, 

 exulting in its beauty, and dancing in very 

 rapture in the air ; yesterday it was a denizen of 

 the mud, a slimy, crawling, repulsive creature, 

 breathing through the medium of the water, and 

 feeding greedily upon any prey that might come 

 within its reach. Yesterday, had it been removed 

 from the water and laid in the sunbeams, it would 

 have died as with poison, and in an hour would 

 have been reduced to a dry and withered sem- 

 blance of its former self; to-day, were it to be 

 plunged beneath the waters, it would quickly 



