C ” 2 ] 
accuracy and precifion, by Moufet, Swammerdam, 
Reaumur, and others, it would be fuperfluous to 
expatiate upon them here. But I cannot forbear 
taking notice of one very remarkable property of thefe 
little mifchievous animals, which lately prefented 
itfelf to my view, and which has not yet perhaps been 
duly attended to by any naturalift. Being in the 
garden belonging to the Fellows of vVadham Col- 
lege, with the Reverend Mr. Allen, Fellow of that 
houfe, on Wednefday, Auguft 20, 1766, about half 
an hour before fun-let, fuch an immenfe number of 
gnats filled the atmofphere, in which we breathed, as 
I had never feen before. We both of us alfo then 
obferved fix columns, formed intirely of thefe infedts, 
afcending from the tops of fix boughs of an apple-tree, 
in another garden, feparated from that we were in by a 
• partition- wall, to the height of at leafl: fifty or fixty 
feet. Two of thefe columns feemed perfectly eredt 
and perpendicular, three of them oblique, and one 
approached fomewhat towards a pyramidal form. 
That bodies of gnats, in figure a little fimilar to the 
pillars mentioned here, are now and then to be feen, 
we learn from an ingenious * author ; but that thefe 
bodies ever afcend fifty or fixty feet, has not, I believe, 
been yet obferved by any zoologer or natural hiftorian. 
It may not be improper to remark, that fome of 
thefe gnats had their bodies greatly diftended, and 
fwoln much beyond their ufual fize, by the un- 
common quantities of blood they had imbibed. One 
of them, in particular, being killed at the caftle here, 
feemed confiderably larger than any of the reft, and 
* Tho. Moufet, Inferior, five Minimor. Animal, Thcatr , c. xiii. 
p. 82. Londini, 1634. ; 
6 bad 
