26 WINTER GNATS. 



branches, we suddenly found ourselves making one with a 

 company of Gnats, dancing (though more mutely) quite as 

 merrily as they could possibly .have footed it on the balmy air 

 of a summer's eve. Their appearance was welcome to our eyes, 

 not as flowers in May, but as flowers in January, and so we 

 sat down on one of the oaken stumps hard by, to watch their 

 evolutions : mazy and intricate enough, in sooth, they seemed. 

 The " set" upon which we had intruded, was an assemblage of 

 those Tipulidan or long-legged Gnats which have been named 

 Tell-tales, we suppose, because by their presence' in winter, 

 they seem to tell a tale of early spring, belied by the bitter 

 east, which often tells us another story when we turn from 

 their sheltered saloon of assembly. In this sense, however, 

 these are not the only tell-tales of their kind, for quite as 

 common, at the same season, are some other parties of aerial 

 dancers, one of which we fell in with soon after we had taken 

 leave of the first. These were tiny sylphs with black bodies 

 and wings of snow-white gauze, and like " choice spirits, black, 

 white, and grey," (for they wore plumes of the latter colour,) 

 they were greeting the still New Year with mirth and revelry, 

 and that over a frozen pool, whose icy presence one would have 

 fancied quite enough for their instant annihilation. But though 

 (warmed by exercise) these merry mates care so little for 

 the cold without, they are glad enough, when occasion serves, 

 to profit by the shelter of our windows. In ours we often 

 watch them, and you, good reader, had better seek for them, 

 unless you would miss the sight of as pretty and elegant a little 

 creature as any one could desire to look at on a fine summer's, 

 much more a winter's, day. We have spoken of the plumes of 

 these winged revellers, black, white, and grey, which dance in 

 the air as merrily as the Quaker's wife in the song; but here 

 be it observed, that our Gnats' wives, with real quaker-like 

 sobriety, rarely, if ever, dance at all, and never by any accident 

 wear feathers. 



But stay ! here we are arrived at the end of our dance, nay, 



