THE COMMON GNAT. 61 



meet, witli the end where the breathing aperture of the 

 larva is to be uppermost. To this egg she cements 

 another, to that a third, and so on till the number 

 amounts to between two and three hundred. Nor does 

 she build at random, but fashions the whole into a 

 little boat, hollow, elevated and narrow at each end, 

 and broad and depressed at the middle, the very 

 model of those fishing-boats that are found to live in 

 the roughest water. When she has completed her 

 little vessel, it is launched, and committed to the water, 

 where, if no accident happen, the whole boat is con- 

 verted into detached and living larvae in the course of 

 three or four days. The success of this mode of nidi- 

 fication is best proved by the countless swarms of gnats 

 that appear at all periods of the summer, notwithstand- 

 ing the number of enemies by which they are beset. 

 Indeed, such a power of production do the little crea- 

 tures set in opposition to those of destruction, that, 

 were their destroyers fewer, they would fill the air in 

 marshy places almost to solidity. 



These phenomena are not, however, altogether con- 

 fined to the mountain; its peculiar traits are of a 

 more elevated character, though they do not, and 

 cannot, exceed in wonder, the smallest that nature 

 produces. 



As we gain the ascent, and bid farewell to the region 

 of phtenogamous, or flowering plants, and reach the 

 families that are nourished by the cold stone, it may 

 not be amiss to pause, and take a little breathing. 

 Even there, upon its very verge as it were, the vege- 

 table kingdom does not forget its bounty. The dwarf 

 crimson bramble, (rubus arcticus,) and more frequently 



