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High above the top of the rocks, in the clear thin air of the mountain, a flock of swallows wheeled and sported, uttering an unfamiliar two-note call; butterflies fluttered irresolute, looking frivolous enough in the presence of the eternal hills; gauzy-winged dragonflies zigzagged to and fro, their intense blue gleaming in the sun.
There I sat in the drowsy parlour, the humming afternoon coming in at the door, 'the blue fly' singing on the hot pane, dreaming all kinds of gauzy-winged dreams, while my body absorbed ham sandwiches and some excellent ale. Of course I did not leave the place without the inevitable reflection on Lamb and the inns he had immortalised.
The white-winged boats were flitting lightly to and fro, like gauzy-winged insects in the summer air, the song of the fishermen drawing their nets on the beach floated cheerily upward. Capri lay like a half-dissolved opal in shimmering clouds of mist, and Naples gleamed out pearly clear in the purple distance.
Meanwhile, the earth itself shall suddenly turn to pink, and a close look disclose a tiny, low-growing blossom, sweet as the morning, with the glow of the sunrise in its face; a little bunch of crazy-looking stamens, and tiny snips of petals standing out at all angles, and of all shades on one stem, from white to deep red; the whole no bigger than a gauzy-winged fly, and shaped not unlike one, with a delicious odor that scents the air.
On each tiny islet, the lavish wealth of nature, freely outpoured, seemed to make it a perfect paradise. Brilliantly-plumaged birds flitted here and there, their colours contrasting with the green foliage. Gauzy-winged insects buzzed to and fro.
Down by the pond side, too, they captured some of the fierce libellulae, the gauzy-winged dragon-flies, that darted about with such a powerful flight over the water, and then hovered apparently motionless, as though looking at their beautiful bodies reflected on the bright surface.
As I proceeded the thrush grew more and more uneasy. She came so near me that I saw she had a gauzy-winged fly in her mouth, another proof that she had young ones near. She called, without opening her beak, her usual low "quee." Finding a dry spot, and the baby-cry having ceased, I sat down to consider and to wait.
Impressed by this warning, and attracted by Thorny's enthusiasm, Ben cast himself down upon the blanket, and for an hour the two heads bobbed to and fro, from microscope to book, the teacher airing his small knowledge, the pupil more and more interested in the new and curious things he saw or heard, though it must be confessed that Ben infinitely preferred to watch ants and bugs, queer little worms and gauzy-winged flies, rather than "putter" over plants with long names.
On bright, crisp mornings a striking optical effect may frequently be observed from the shadows of the higher mountains while the sunbeams are pouring past overhead. Then every insect, no matter what may be its own proper color, burns white in the light. Gauzy-winged hymenoptera, moths, jet-black beetles, all are transfigured alike in pure, spiritual white, like snowflakes.
Lucky for their race that there are millions instead of thousands of them; for now the swifts and great numbers of tree and barn swallows spend the livelong day in swooping after the unfortunate gauzy-winged motes, which have risen above the toad's maw upon land, and beyond the reach of the trout's leap over the water.
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