6 IMPERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
I was so fortunate as to witness a spectacle of this kind, 
which afforded me a more sublime gratification than any 
work or exhibition of art has power to communicate.— 
The first was in 1811:—taking an evening walk near 
my house, when the sun declining fast towards the hori- 
zon shone forth without a cloud, the whole atmosphere 
over and near the stream swarmed with infinite myriads 
of Ephemere and little gnats of the genus Chzrono- 
mus, Latr., which in the sun-beam appeared as nume- 
rous and more lucid than the drops of rain, as if the 
heavens were showering down brilliant gems.—After- 
wards, in the following year, one Sunday, a little before 
sun-set, I was enjoying a stroll with a friend at a greater 
distance from the river, when in a field by the road-side 
the same pleasing scene was renewed, but in a style of 
still greater magnificence; for, from some cause in the 
atmosphere, the insects at a distance looked much larger 
than they really were. The choral dances consisted prin- 
cipally of Ephemerze, but there were also some of Chi- 
ronomi; the former, however, being most conspicuous, 
attracted our chief attention—alternately rising and fall- 
ing, in the full beam they appeared so transparent and 
glorious, that they scarcely resembled any thing mate- 
rial—they reminded us of angels and glorified spirits 
drinking life and joy in the effulgence of the Divine fa- 
vour*. The bard of Twickenham, from the terms in 
which his beautiful description of his sylphs is conceived 
in The Rape of the Lock, seems to have witnessed the 
pleasing scene here described : 
a2 The authors of this work were the witnesses of the magnificent 
scene here described. It was on the second of September. The 
first was on the ninth of that month. 
