TIPUL^E. 159 



The TIPUL^E are different in their appearance from 

 any of their genera. Gaffer Longlegs, who so often 

 buzzes round the candle, and pays for his temerity 

 with limb and life, is one of the giants of the race. 

 They are dipterous or two-winged insects, and their legs 

 are generally long in proportion to their bodies. The 

 small insects that are seen so constantly over moist 

 places in warm weather, are tipulae. They frisk, gam- 

 bol, and buzz like the gnat, (culex pipiens,) but they do 

 not sting like that insect, neither is their noise trouble- 

 some during the night. Many of the species deposit 

 their eggs in the earth ; but there are also others that 

 do so in the water, the larvae of which burrow in the 

 banks. 



Those three genera of little creatures, in their suc- 

 cessive generations, probably exceed in number every 

 other description of visible animals ; and as one passes 

 from them to those that are still more minute, and 

 cannot be discovered without the aid of magnifying 

 glasses, one cannot help being astonished at the abun- 

 dance and variety of life of which the world is full ; 

 nor is the demonstration of an Almighty Creator the 

 less clear and forcible when we attempt to trace the 

 infinitely small of his works, than when we think of 

 millions of systems of worlds, and turn our contempla- 

 tion to that universe, " whose centre is everywhere, 

 and its boundary nowhere ;" wherever our course of 

 inquiry lies, there is always a point at which we must 

 drop that inquiry as beyond our powers, and turn in 

 adoration of Him who is infinitely mightier and more 

 wonderful than it all. 



Of the inhabitants of the water, by which the summer 

 p 2 



