It certainly was a VERY large Gnat: 'about the size of a chicken,' Alice thought.
'--then you don't like all insects?' the Gnat went on, as quietly as if nothing had happened.
'What sort of insects do you rejoice in, where YOU come from?' the Gnat inquired.
'Of course they answer to their names?' the Gnat remarked carelessly.
'What's the use of their having names the Gnat said, 'if they won't answer to them?'
'All right,' said the Gnat: 'half way up that bush, you'll see a Rocking-horse-fly, if you look.
'Sap and sawdust,' said the Gnat. 'Go on with the list.'
'Look on the branch above your head,' said the Gnat, 'and there you'll find a snap-dragon-fly.
When I lift my tail up quite high, all is going well, and you must charge; but if I let it hang down, run away as fast as you can.' When the
gnat had heard that, she flew away again, and revealed everything, down to the minutest detail, to the willow-wren.
The humming of the
gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies' wings, the strokes of the water spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat -- all these made audible music.
Gnats, knowing nothing of their brief glorification, wandered across the shimmer of this pathway, irradiated as if they bore fire within them, then passed out of its line, and were quite extinct.