318 THE WATER-FLEA. 



of existence for insects, which are creatures subject 

 to so many contingencies, 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 imme- 

 diately sensible of this temperature, and are excited 

 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 appear of an uniform size, and emerging in 

 the spring they are all apparently full grown, and 

 during the summer none of smaller dimensions 

 associate with the family parties. This plain, 

 tiny, gliding water-flea 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 parties of this 

 nimble swimmer, presenting themselves at these 

 periods of vacancy, become insensibly familiar to 

 his sight, and by many of us are not observed 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 our mind. 



July 29. We frequently notice in our evening 



