No insect has delighted me more than the Gnat. In my boyhood, the shrill sound of its tiny horn was sufficient to conjure up a thousand visions of elves and fairies, and even now that sound will remind me of those fabulous beings with whom I always identify the Gnat tribe. Low, marshy ground, naturalists say, generate these curious insects, but I have known them to abound in hilly districts, where I have watched them enjoying their endless dance long after the moon has risen. Surely if spirits visit the earth, they come in the form and fashion of Gnats, who, unlike other insects, evidently prolong their revels through the night. Then their form , how light, how delicate, and how elegant! Shakspeare, who saw everything, has not forgotten the Gnat, as we find in his description of Queen Mab and her fairy train,

Her waggoner, a small grey-coated Gnat.

, a fit actor, indeed, in such a spectacle. Like the elves, too, the Gnat delights in tormenting our species, , as my flesh hath ere now testified. If you would have a specimen of their exquisite puncturing, wait till the summer; and if the night be warm, open your chamber window to cool the room. Probably a slight shower of rain may chance to fall before day-break, and if so, be assured of a visit from these little imps, who will not depart without a token of their good will. Your Gnat is an entomological Exquisite; his form is cast in the mould of ultra-dandyism, and no insect appears to be more conscious of its elegant shape. The delicate feathers of his head, by which we are told the aforesaid shrill sound is produced, might be compared to the brutus of a London buck, and his legs are of true aristocratical proportions. Then his dancing! can any one of the insect tribe contemplate it without envy?, Whether in mid air, or on the window-panes, the capering of the Gnat outrivals the posturing of the Italian figurantes. He heeds not the dull motions of the house-fly, the blue-hottle, or the wasp, but leaps over them if they chance to get in his way. This is a dull seaon for the Gnat, although a bright and mild day will sometimes mock them; the Summer is their carnival-time, and I would not be one to intrude upon their antic gamhols, despite of the white lumps which they delight in raising on the fair neck of the companion of my evening rambles.

ALPHA.

Quoted from: The Olio, Or, Museum of Entertainment. No. IV, Vol. VII, January 29, 1831.