Wonderland- Strange Insects

But the beard seemed to melt away as she touched it, and she found
herself sitting quietly under a tree—while the Gnat (for that was the
insect she had been talking to) was balancing itself on a twig just
over her head, and fanning her with its wings.

It certainly was a _very_ large Gnat: “about the size of a chicken,”
Alice thought. Still, she couldn’t feel nervous with it, after they had
been talking together so long.

“—then you don’t like all insects?” the Gnat went on, as quietly as if
nothing had happened.

“I like them when they can talk,” Alice said. “None of them ever talk,
where _I_ come from.”

“What sort of insects do you rejoice in, where _you_ come from?” the
Gnat inquired.

“I don’t _rejoice_ in insects at all,” Alice explained, “because I’m
rather afraid of them—at least the large kinds. But I can tell you the
names of some of them.”

“Of course they answer to their names?” the Gnat remarked carelessly.

“I never knew them to do it.”

“What’s the use of their having names,” the Gnat said, “if they won’t
answer to them?”

“No use to _them_,” said Alice; “but it’s useful to the people who name
them, I suppose. If not, why do things have names at all?”

“I can’t say,” the Gnat replied. “Further on, in the wood down there,
they’ve got no names—however, go on with your list of insects: you’re
wasting time.”

“Well, there’s the Horse-fly,” Alice began, counting off the names on
her fingers.

“All right,” said the Gnat: “half way up that bush, you’ll see a
Rocking-horse-fly, if you look. It’s made entirely of wood, and gets
about by swinging itself from branch to branch.”

“What does it live on?” Alice asked, with great curiosity.

“Sap and sawdust,” said the Gnat. “Go on with the list.”

Alice looked up at the Rocking-horse-fly with great interest, and made
up her mind that it must have been just repainted, it looked so bright
and sticky; and then she went on.

“And there’s the Dragon-fly.”

“Look on the branch above your head,” said the Gnat, “and there you’ll
find a snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, its wings of
holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy.”

“And what does it live on?”

“Frumenty and mince pie,” the Gnat replied; “and it makes its nest in a
Christmas box.”

“And then there’s the Butterfly,” Alice went on, after she had taken a
good look at the insect with its head on fire, and had thought to
herself, “I wonder if that’s the reason insects are so fond of flying
into candles—because they want to turn into Snap-dragon-flies!”

“Crawling at your feet,” said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in
some alarm), “you may observe a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin
slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump
of sugar.”

“And what does _it_ live on?”

“Weak tea with cream in it.”

A new difficulty came into Alice’s head. “Supposing it couldn’t find
any?” she suggested.

“Then it would die, of course.”

“But that must happen very often,” Alice remarked thoughtfully.

“It always happens,” said the Gnat.
...

“That would never do, I’m sure,” said Alice: “the governess would never
think of excusing me lessons for that. If she couldn’t remember my
name, she’d call me ‘Miss!’ as the servants do.”

“Well, if she said ‘Miss,’ and didn’t say anything more,” the Gnat
remarked, “of course you’d miss your lessons. That’s a joke. I wish
_you_ had made it.”

“Why do you wish _I_ had made it?” Alice asked. “It’s a very bad one.”

But the Gnat only sighed deeply, while two large tears came rolling
down its cheeks.

“You shouldn’t make jokes,” Alice said, “if it makes you so unhappy.”

Then came another of those melancholy little sighs, and this time the
poor Gnat really seemed to have sighed itself away, for, when Alice
looked up, there was nothing whatever to be seen on the twig, and, as
she was getting quite chilly with sitting still so long, she got up and
walked on.

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, Chapter 3 - Looking-Glass Insects