108 LONG-LEGGED GNATS. 



Besides the above, there is a mixed multitude of small 

 TipuloBj. or long-legged flies, much resembling, and often con- 

 founded with, the gnat; though the common gnat is suffi- 

 ciently distinguished by the singular transformations of its 

 aquatic larva, described already in ' A Life of Buoyancy.' In 

 their last and perfect stage, many, however, of these Tipuli- 

 dan flies, or gnats, are fall as buoyant as those to which the 

 latter appellation more properly belongs : like them, they are 

 often alert and joyous, while other insects are dead or dor- 

 mant ; like them, fly unwetted in the shower, and often, like 

 them, dancing in the winter shade, hold, in defiance of the 

 gloomiest season, their "mid-cfa^/ sports and revelry." 



But it is not with such diminutives that we should conclude 

 handsomely our notice of the line of Longlegs. Let us re- 

 turn instead to the stilted "fathers" or mothers of the tribe, 

 with a random guess at the derivation of one of their incon- 

 gruous appellations. Why they should be called " Tailors " 

 we cannot tell, unless, as animals made up of legs, they may 

 be considered but as fractions ninth parts, perhaps, of an 

 insect. Why creatures never known to spin a thread should 

 sometimes also be named " Jenny Spinners," was, to us, no 

 less a mystery, till, on a summer's day, its possible solution 

 flashed upon us. We were sitting in a shady lane, when, on 

 the turf that bordered it, what should appear but a single 

 Mother Longlegs neither flying nor walking, but whirling 

 and spinning round in a strange eccentric manner ; her wings 



