We see a great ship swims as well as a small cork; and an eagle flies in the air, as well as a little gnat.

All such enemies, however, he regarded as utterly trivial compared to the real dangers of the wildernessthe torment and menace of attacks by the swarming insects, by mosquitoes and the even more intolerable tiny gnats, by the ticks, and by the vicious poisonous ants which occasionally cause villages and even whole districts to be deserted by human beings.

The last attacker appeared a feeble gnat to dance thus alone in the eye of morning.

The grasshopper, gnat, and fly, Serve us for our minstrelsy; Grace said, we dance a while,

All such enemies, however, he regarded as utterly trivial compared to the real dangers of the wildernessthe torment and menace of attacks by the swarming insects, by mosquitoes and the even more intolerable tiny gnats, by the ticks, and by the vicious poisonous ants which occasionally cause villages and even whole districts to be deserted by human beings.

The warm and humming air is filled with insect sounds, ranging from the murmur of invisible gnats and midges, to the impetuous whirring of the great Libellulae, large almost as swallows, and hawking high in air for their food.

Sometimes, as we glide, always noiselessly, beneath the overhanging foliage and tangled vines along shore, what myriads of gayly winged insectsbrilliant dragon-flies, mammoth gnats, preposterous mosquitoesswarm about our heads, disturbed from their gambols by the laughter and songs aboard our moving craft!

Is not, not merely sun and stars, but even the meanest gnat which hums in the air, better than man, more worthy of God's love than man?

The scentless flame of the geraniums and calceolarias fills, without satisfying my eyes; the gnats' officious hum offends my ears; and thoughts in comparison of which the calceolarias are sweet and the gnats melodious, occupy my mind.

Four nimble gnats the horses were, Their harnesses of gossamere, Fly Cranion, her charioteer.

But in fact, and particularly in hours stately with momentous things, what a sacrilegious trick it has of nagging its holy mistress with triflet light as airsmall as gnats yet as pertinacious.

We all know that we should feel that that particular Frenchman was a repulsive little gnat.

Lie down, and while sweet slumber overtakes you, I will have a care that no unseemly noise, nor buzzing fly, nor vexing gnat disturbs your dreams.

In the daytime gnats and sand-flies and horse-flies sometimes bothered us a little, but not much.

Is not, not merely sun and stars, but even the meanest gnat which hums in the air, better than man, more worthy of God's love than man?

One afternoon we pitched camp by a tiny rivulet, in the midst of the scrubby upland forest; a camp, by the way, where the piums, the small, biting flies, were a torment during the hours of daylight, while after dark their places were more than taken by the diminutive gnats which the Brazilians expressively term "polvora," or powder, and which get through the smallest meshes of a mosquito-net.