170 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



compelling power of Utility. But I cannot see its rule 

 clearly in all these matters. May not pleasure for 

 pleasure's sake .exist in the insect world ? May not 

 play for play's sake exist there ? The sports or re- 

 laxations of insects at first thought this may seem 

 a fantastic idea, a humanising of creatures whose 

 sphere is utterly alien to human. But is it so fan- 

 tastic ? I am not quite sure. The conduct of the 

 winter gnats and their summer relatives is very hard 

 to account for if we rule amusement, pleasure for 

 pleasure's sake, out of the insect's world. These are 

 the gleaming-winged, almost diaphanous, little things 

 which, at varying heights from the ground, keep rising 

 and falling, hour after hour, in sunshine and some- 

 times in shade and even hi rain. They are said to 

 dance in the form of a column, but, if so, it is a lean- 

 ing column, for the rise of the gnat is nearly always 

 at an angle it does not mount straight up, though 

 it sometimes may drop straight down. 



Often in summer immense parties of these gnats 

 are seen rising and dropping in a mazy confusion over 

 the top of a fair-sized tree. But the gnats that dance 

 hi winter and spring are more often seen at about our 

 own height from the ground. These little dancers 

 dance, I imagine, very near the place of their birth. 

 They are hatched in the ditch or turf by the side of 

 the hedge, and here they live, dance, lay their eggs, 

 and die. This is my notion ; but I have never 

 followed the career of a gnat in its metamorphoses. 



