102 



KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



ungallant flies would seem still to think it 

 merry in the air when their dames are not 

 there. 



Though courting the winter's gleam, every- 

 body can tell that gnats by no means hide 

 their heads with the summer sun, for they 

 seem to rejoice at his setting as much as at 

 his rising, — in his absence as well as in his 

 presence. In short, at every hour, as at 

 every season, " Dansez towours " seems their 

 motto : up and down, in and out, and round 

 about, in the morning, noon, and evening of 

 our day, as in the morning, noon, and evening 

 of their own existence. 



But stay ! here we are arrived at the end 

 of the dance, nay, at the end of our dancers' 

 lives, without having said a word about their 

 beginning. Well, we have nothing for it but 

 to go backwards, jumping over the steps 

 already made, up to the premier pas, our 

 aerial performers' birth and parentage. 

 Everybody, we conclude, has a general notion 

 concerning the passage of a butterfly through 

 the successive stages of caterpillar, chrysalis, 

 and winged flutterer. Then only let it be 

 borne in mind that all perfect insects have 

 passed through three stages corresponding, 

 though not similar, which are yclept by 

 entomologists those of larva, pupa, and 

 imago. 



Now for the commencement of the gnat's 

 life of buoyancy, which commences in the 

 water. Man has been believed by the nations 

 of antiquity to have 



Learn'd of the little Nautilus to sail, 



Spread the thin oar, and catch the rising gale ; 



but he might also have taken a first lesson 

 in boat-building from an object common in 

 almost every pond, though, certainly, not so 

 likely to attract attention as the sailing craft 

 of that bold mariner, the little Argonaut. 

 This object is a boat of eggs ; not a boat egg- 

 laden, nor yet that witches' transport, an 

 egg-shell boat, but a buoyant life-boat, curi- 

 ously constructed of her eggs by the common 

 gnat. How she begins and completes her 

 work may be seen by any one curious enough, 

 and wakeful enough, to repair by five or six 

 in a morning to a pond or bucket of water, 

 frequented by gnats. The boat itself, with 

 all we are going to describe, and all we have 

 depicted from the life may be seen at home, 

 and at all hours, within the convenient com- 

 pass of a basin filled from an adjacent pond. 

 When complete, the boat consists of from 

 250 to 350 eggs, of which, though each is 

 heavy enough to sink in water, the whole 

 compose a structure perfectly buoyant — so 

 buoyant as to float amidst the most violent 

 agitation. What is yet more wonderful, 

 though hollow, it never fills with water; 

 and even if we push it to the bottom of our 

 mimic pool, it will rise unwetted to the sur- 



face. This cunning craft has been likened 

 to a London wherry, being sharp and high 

 fore and aft, convex below, concave above, 

 and always floating on its keel. In a few 

 days each of the numerous lives within, 

 having put on the shape of a grub or larva, 

 issues from the lower end of its own flask- 

 shaped egg ; but the empty shells continuing 

 still attached, the boat remains a boat till 

 reduced by weather to a wreck. 



There let us leave it, and follow the fortunes 

 of one of the crew after he has left his cabin 

 which he quits in rather a singular manner, 

 emerging through its bottom into the water. 

 Happily, however, he is born a swimmer 

 and can take his pleasure in his native element, 

 poising himself near its surface, head down- 

 wards, tail upwards. Why chooses he this 

 strange position ? Just for the same reason 

 that we rather prefer, when taking a dabble 

 in the waves, to have our heads above water, 

 — for the convenience, namely, of receiving a 

 due supply of air, which the little swimmer 

 in question sucks in through a sort of tube in 

 his tail. This breathing apparatus, as well 

 as the tail itself, serves also for a buoy, and 

 both end in a sort of funnel, composed of 

 hairs arranged in a star-like form, and anoint- 

 ed 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 

 funnel's ends, on re-opening which he again 

 rises whenever the fancy takes him. But 

 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 resr 

 pirators, not very much tinlike the aural 

 appendages of an ass, to which they have 

 been compared ; and through these he feeds 

 on air, requiring no grosser aliment. At his 

 nether extremity there expands a fish- like, 

 finny tail, by 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 aw T akened 

 to a new desire to rise upwards. Fed for a 

 season upon air, the insect's desires seem to 

 have grown aerian. 



