BLOOD-WORMS. 71 



endued, too, with almost demoniac vitality, for northern 

 travellers record, how that when frozen into black masses 

 resembling peat, they have been thawed into a living cloud. 



It is really pleasant to tarn from these foreign fiagellators 

 of humanity (here only noticed for the sake of contrast) to our 

 gentler sporters in the sun and shade, with a few of whose va- 

 rieties and vagaries we shall bid them, for the present farewell. 

 All those who are accustomed to make their ablutions in soft 

 water, have probably noticed at the bottom of their ewers, an 

 assemblage of dirt-coloured fuzzy streaks, which on narrowly 

 watching, they would find to be endued with the power of loco- 

 motion. Each of these objects, as it meets the sight, is no- 

 thing but a case of dusty particles collected around it by a little 

 living occupant, which on account of its colour, has acquired 

 the sanguinary name of Blood-worm. An eye unacquainted 

 with this unpromising object, would as little expect to behold 

 evolved from it a creature of grace and beauty, as to see a rose 

 expand from the stalk of a nettle ; yet after passing through the 

 intermediate stage of Pupa, (in which its breathing organs are 

 no less curiously adapted than those of the common species,) 

 this little worm emerges from the water in the shape of a small 

 Gnat, whose elegant plumes, surpassing those of its fellows, 

 have acquired for it the accordant appellation of Chironimu.s 

 plumosus. Some varieties of this pretty Fly waltz upon the 

 water or glide over its surface like the stately swan, their 

 wings, as with the bird, serving them for the purpose of a sail. 



