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The midges bit him, the dancing gnats tried to fly into his mouth, and all the spring around him seemed to grow more lovely and alive; the songs of the cuckoos and the blackbirds, the laughter of the yaflies, the level-slanting sunlight, the apple blossom which had crowned her head!

As for Quin, he moved through the enchanted days, blind, deaf, and dumb to everything but Eleanor. She was the dazzling sun in whose effulgent rays the rest of humanity floated like midges. So wholly blinded was he by her radiant presence that he did not realize the darkness into which he was about to be plunged until her departure was imminent.

One Asiatic airship it looked to Bert from below like three hundred yards of pavement whirled back and circled two or three times over that great overthrow, and half a dozen crimson flying-machines danced for a moment like great midges in the sunlight before they swept on after their fellows.

The method of procedure, which I shall describe more fully by-and-by, differed considerably from case to case, as these very large and strong spiders have sometimes to deal with mere tiny midges, and sometimes with extremely big and dangerous creatures, like bumble-bees, wasps, and even hornets.

In size there is the difference between the huge terminalia towering up 200 feet high and the tiny little potentilla; between the atlas moth 12 inches in spread and the hardly discernible midges; between the elephant, massive enough to trample its way through the densest forest, and the humble little mouse peeping out of its hole in the ground.

On the 1st of July we arrived near Phasis, followed by a vessel filled with Mingrelians, who seemed all to be fools or drunk. Quitting the vessel, we went up the river in a boat, passing an island in the mouth of the river, where Oetes, the father of Medea the enchantress, is said to have reigned. On this island we spent the night, and were sadly infested by midges.

And against that dazzling background black silhouettes were dancing like midges under a microscope, like Indians swinging their tomahawks. They were still mere specks. Sometimes they disappeared entirely and then leaped high, and came nearer, their rifles wriggling in the air like the feet of a polyp. Gradually their cries became audible and swelled louder and louder like the far barking of dogs.

He only bowed again. 'I know there are evil tongues abroad, said Margaret, with a desperate effort to command her voice; 'but I heeded them no more than the midges in the air while I knew my lord and husband heeded them not! But oh! say you do not. 'Have I said that I did? 'Then for a proof dismiss and silence that foul-slandering wretch, Jamet de Tillay.

When, out of curiosity, we fired a revolver shot, they rose in the air with a roar like that of a great waterfall, and their crossing lines of flight in the sky was like the multitude of midges in the sun. I remember one flock of snow-white geese that turned and wheeled, alternately throwing their bodies in shadow or in the sunlight, so that they flashed brilliantly.

They filled the air to an immense height, and swarmed upon the water, too light to sink in it. Eyes and mouth had to be kept closed while passing through this living cloud: they struck upon the face like fine drifting snow. Thousands lay in the boat when she emerged from the cloud of midges.