FLIGHT OF OUR HOBBY. 13 



May Fly we would beg thee to recognise our symbolic hobby ; 

 a hobby, we confess it, whereat even under her imposing name, 

 Entomology, all her sister-ologies were once in the habit of 

 kicking up their heels, as they left her disdainfully in the. rear. 

 Of late, however, she has been gaining ground, and now 

 promises to keep up with the proudest jade among her fellows. 

 But without invidious comparisons, let us proceed to put her 

 through her paces, and show how in pursuit of " charming 

 variety " she carries us through roads as varied. Now, like 

 an ambling palfrey, she bears us over flowery meadows ; now, 

 like a flying Pegasus, mounts with us through air ; now de- 

 scends beneatt earth's surface ; then plunging in the stream, 

 opens to us new worlds beneath the waters. In these her en- 

 dowments, of amphibious character, we may notice the first 

 points of resemblance between the features of our favourite and 

 the habits of the May Fly Day Fly, we also call her, and so she 

 is, in her brief career through the summer sky ; but before she 

 has ever fluttered or had wings to flutter in air, each May Fly 

 has lived in earth, aye, and under water, caverned in the bank 

 of her native streamlet, where at present she abides. The 

 comparison holds good still further ; no Ephemera can now 

 disport itself in air, nor in the fields of air is there now much 

 of pleasant pasture for our hobby ; but the Day Fly of next 

 May is in no want of food or doubtless of enjoyment, though 

 confined to earth and water ; and in these does our hobby still 

 possess an ample supply of winter exercise and provender. 



