As when a swarme of gnats at eventide Out of the fennes of Allan doe arise, Their murmuring small trumpets sownden wide, Whiles in the air their clust’ring army flies, That as a cloud doth seem to dim the skies; Ne man nor beast may rest or take repast, For their sharp wounds and noyous injuries, Till the fierce northern wind with blust’ring blast Doth blow them quite away, and in the ocean cast. Ligon, in his History of Barbados, makes the following curious observation relative to a species of insects which he calls “Flyes,” but which are more probably Gnats or Mosquitoes: “There is not only a race of all these kinds, that go in a generation, but upon new occasions, new kinds; as, after a great downfall of rain, when the ground has been extremely moistened, and softened with the water, I have walk’d out upon a dry walk (which I made my self) in an evening, and there came about me an army of such Flyes, as I had never seen before, nor after; and they rose, as I conceived, out of the earth: They were as big bodied as Bees, but far larger wings, harm they did us none, but only lighted on us; their colour between ash-colour and purple.”[936] If Gnats swarm in the summer in globular masses, it is supposed to prognosticate a storm. Moufet says: “If Gnats near sunset do play up and down in open air, they presage heat; if in the shade, warm and milde showers; but if they altogether sting those that passe by them, then expect cold weather and very much rain.... If any one would finde water either in a hill or valley, let him observe (saith Paxanus in Geoponika) the sun rising, and where the Gnats whirle round in form of an obelisk, underneath there is water to be found. Yea, if Apomasaris deceive us not, dreams of Gnats do foretell news of war or a disease, and that so much the more dangerous as it shall be apprehended to approach the more principall parts of the body.”[937] “On the 14th of December, 1830, at Oremburg, snow fell accompanied by a multitude of small black Gnats, whose motions were similar to those of a flea.” This singular phenomenon was described at the session of the Academy of St. Petersburg, held February 21st, 1831.[938]