ORDER IX. 



D I P T E R A. 



Culicidse — Gnats. ^ 



Concerning the generation of Gnats, Moufet says : 

 "Countrey people suppose them, and that not improbably, 

 to be procreated from some corrupt moisture of the earth. "^ 



A battle of Gnats (prol)ably an appearance of Ephemera) 

 is recorded in Stow's Chronicles of England, p. 509, to have 

 been fought in the reign of King Richard II.: "A fighting 

 among Gnats at the King's maner of Shine, where they were 

 so thicke gathered, that the aire was darkened with them : 

 they fought and made a great battaile. Two partes of them 

 being slayne, fel downe to the grounde ; the thirde parte 

 hauing got the victorie, flew away, no man knew whither. 

 The number of the deade was such that they might be 

 swept uppe with besomes, and bushels filled weyth them.'-^ 



In the year 1*736 the Gnats, Culex inpiens, were so 

 numerous in England, that, as it is recorded, vast columns 

 of them were seen to rise in the air from the steeple of the 

 cathedral at Salisbury, which, at a little distance resembling 

 columns of smoke, occasioned many people to think the edi- 

 fice was on fire.* At Sagan, in Silesia, in July, 1812, a 

 similar occurrence gave rise in like manner to an alarm 

 that the church was on fire.^ In May of the following year 

 at Norwich, at about six o'clock in the evening, the inhabit- 

 ants of that city were alarmed by the appearance of smoke 

 issuing from the upper window of the spire of the cathedral, 



^ The numerous family of CuUcidse are confounded under the com- 

 mon names of Gnat and Mosquito; hence many mistakes will neces- 

 sarily arise. 



2 Theat. Ins., p. 81. Topsel's Hist, of Beasts, p. 952. 



3 Quot. in N. <ic Q., ix. 3U3 



* Phil. Trans., Ivii. 113; Bingley's Anim. Biog., iv. 205. 

 6 Germar's Mag. dtr EntomoL, i. 137. 



(278) 



