credited with having reasoning faculties. Let us say that Nature has given to her offspring the ways and means for the provision and enjoyment of their often brief existence. Their lives are not long enough for them to study the pros and cons of their actions, so their mother has given to them a royal road to knowledge.

When the solitary little grub wakes up, then, in its isolated nest, with an alarming sense of emptiness, it finds the food most suitable for its nourishment in a state of such inactivity that it falls an easy prey to the greedy appetite of the undeveloped wasp.

What about the poor caterpillar? The aim and object of its existence were surely not to feed a wasp? Perhaps not. Wasps' nests are not intended as spoils for anglers, yet some are destined to become food for fishes. Likewise, all caterpillars are not destined to satiate the appetites of grubs, though some fall victims and perish ignominiously, having been rendered incapable of helping themselves.

"Too fragmentary is world and life.

I'll go to the German professor, who's rife
With schemes for putting life's pieces together,
Whereby a passable system's unfurled."

THE GNAT.

CHAPTER XIII.

WATER-NYMPH S.

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A FIOUS old lady, wishing to express her appreciation of a sermon lately preached in her hearing, said that she had "derived great comfort from that beautiful word 'Mesopotamia'!" Doubtless one of the objects of the discourse was to convey com

fort to the listeners; but the preacher certainly never dreamed of the medium through which that object was to be achieved. Perhaps we feel inclined to laugh at the poor old lady, and consider her very stupid. Let us pause for a moment, however, and think what curious circumstances and long-forgotten joys that serve to

cheer our hearts are often presented to our minds by the sight of a face, the scent of a flower, or the sound of a voice.

The very word "nymph," for instance, seems to bring with it a glimpse of the mythical half-veiled damsels, so highly gifted with perpetual youth and beauty, who lived in verdant groves on the sides of fruit-laden hills; who haunted the mountain streams, danced high in the fountains, laughed in the babbling brooks, and sported on the crests of the great sea waves; sometimes luring men on to a dreadful death, sometimes foretelling a joyful ending to their travels.

In a still, secluded pond, shadowed o'er by drooping willows; in a pretty streamlet, wandering through a quiet glade; ay, even in a ditch creeping along at the side of a country road, we may still see nymphs floating near the surface of the water.

Does this statement astonish you? Read, and you will learn that, even now in these practical days the poetic fancies of the ancients are applied to different forms of life.

Gnats cannot be regarded as insects around which to place a halo of imagery. Yet gnats come from nymphs, nymphs are a stage in advance of larvæ, and larvæ are hatched from eggs.

So painfully aware are we of the annoyance and inconvenience caused by a swarm of gnats, that one is inclined to turn away in disgust at the mere mention of their name.

Still, they have their good points. It is impossible to see them dancing about in the sunlight, looking like so many long-legged wingless bodies suspended in mid-air, without experiencing some of the delight which seems to animate their movements. The two gauze-like wings which each gnat possesses are fluttered so quickly in their flight as to render them almost invisible.

Those big fellows with the long feathery antennæ are the gentlemen. You need not mind them so much. It is the ladies who are the principal bloodsuckers, and who dine with the assurance and freedom of invited guests upon the surface of a face, neck, hands, or any other exposed piece of flesh. Still, one would not object to their taking a drink, if they did not leave their irritating poison behind them in the wound.

The bite of an ordinary gnat is, however, as nothing compared with that of the similar, though somewhat smaller, insect called the mosquito, whose sting is attended with very sharp pain. The incessant buzzing one such insect can make with the quick movement of its wings is so irritating, that in itself it is sufficient to prevent sleep.

What sort of organ is it that can be used by a gnat or mosquito to give so much pain? It is a kind of proboscis, which, under a microscope, is seen to be a long round tube of thin skin, covered all over the outside with tiny, feather-like scales, and terminating