66 GNAT BITERS FEMALE. 



moment on the water, then rises, buoyant, a winged inhabitant 

 of air. 



So now we have brought our bold sailor into port, and re- 

 transformed him into a bolder aeronaut. His performances in 

 the latter character, as a dancer, we have extolled already ; but 

 others of a graver nature for which he has the discredit, still 

 remain for notice. Yet think not, gentle ladies, that our 

 plumed Gnat gallant, (albeit so ungallant to his own fair one,) 

 ever settles on a sunny cheek, or ever enters at door or window 

 with blood-thirsty intent. Spare him, therefore, if not "pour 

 V amour de ses beaux plumes," at least for the sake of the in- 

 nocence they denote. Let him finish his reel or his horn- 

 pipe unmolested, and reserve your vengeance for his shrewish 

 partner, on whose plumeless head it will more justly fall. 

 Have we not already hinted that though she seldom dances, 

 and never wears feathers, she has practices something worse, 

 and she it is, who while her spouse regales himself on nectar 

 quaffed from flowers, or perhaps even is satisfied with a cha- 

 meleon banquet she it is, who longs for the "red wine," 

 each drop of which she repays with poison. Her's . are the 

 "barbed shaft," the "whirring wings," the "dragon scales" 

 against which you must invoke the protection of your " guar- 

 dian sylph " or your pocket handkerchief. But even in their 

 fiercest shape, or in that most formidable, a mingled swarm, in 

 which the guilty and the guiltless in their company, must (as 

 in other cases) alike bear the buffet, we are seldom ourselves 



