288 WATER INSECTS. 



the pursuit of Entomology ; for it so happened that certain 

 grains of knowledge picked up therein, had now insinuated 

 themselves between the hitherto smooth surface of our mind 

 and the shining face of outward nature, hindering thus their 

 perfect union. Our eyes, as we have said, were fixed upon 

 the water, which, to the cursory observer, presented nothing 

 but a picture of still life, of the old willow and the blue sky. 

 To another, examining more closely, the mirrored landscape 

 was not without its moving objects, and these whimsically dis- 

 placed as well as inverted a swallow appearing ever and anon 

 to dip its wing in the clouds or foliage, while here and there a 

 fish seemed leaping from the sky. An eye yet more attentive 

 might also have discerned that the surface of the water was 

 traversed by a multitude of queer dark little Insects, with 

 straight lanky bodies and angular limbs, gliding about in all 

 directions. Skimming the glassy mirror like these, but in 

 shape their very antipodes, were certain other little active 

 bodies, oval and convex as an egg, bluish-black, and polished 

 as a steel corselet ; now collected in groups, appearing by twos 

 and threes to embrace each other, then starting off singly as if 

 pricked by contact ; now motionless, then whirling swiftly 

 round and round, seeming absolutely tipsy with their native 

 element, or giddy with the joy of existence. Other creatures 

 of curious boat-like form, almost thrice as big as the last, were 

 cutting the water with their oars : these also looked as if they 

 had drunk, but three times deeper, of an intoxicating draught ; 



