64 GNAT PUPA. 



posed of hairs arranged in a star-like form and anointed with 

 an oil by which they repel water. When tired of suspension 

 near the surface, our little swimmer has only to fold up these 

 divergent hairs, and plump, he sinks down to the bottom. 

 He goes, however, provided with the means of re-ascension, a 

 globule of air which the oil enables him to retain at his fun- 

 nel's ends ; on re-opening which he again rises whenever the 

 fancy takes him. B.ut yet a little while, and a new era arrives 

 in the existence of this buoyant creature : buoyant in his first 

 stage of Larva, in his second of Pupa he is buoyant still. 

 Yet, in resemblance, how unlike ! But lately topsy-turvy, his 

 altered body first assumes what we should call its natural 

 position, and he swims, head upwards, because within it there 

 is now contained a different, but equally curious apparatus for 

 inhaling the atmospheric fluid. Seated behind his head, arises 

 a pair of respirators, not very much unlike the aural appen- 

 dages of an ass, to which they have been compared; and 

 through these he feeds on air, requiring now no grosser aliment. 

 At his nether extremity there expands a fish-like finny tail, by 

 the help of which he can either float or strike at pleasure 

 through the water. 



Thus passes with our buoyant Pupa the space of about a 

 week ; and then another and a more important change comes 

 " o'er the spirit of his dream." With the gradual development 

 of superior organs, the little spark of sensitivity within seems 

 wakened to a new desire to rise upwards. Fed for a season upon 



