41 
the Termites and that of their habitations, an Irish gentleman 
of my acquaintance was heard to exclaim, * By the powers! 
is it not wonderful how these little creatures, the ants, can 
make such large mole-hills ! " 
* A large species of Fly, (Musca rutilans,) common at the 
Cape, is sometimes, if not always, viviparous. Possessed of 
a peculiar acuteness of scent, they assemble in numbers, 
wherever their favourite ordure is accidentally let fall, and 
deposit their young, which begin to crawl over it the moment 
they are dropped. As the proper nidus is not always at hand 
when wanted, it is probable that this insect has the power of 
retaining its eggs beyond the natural term; that, in the mean- 
time, the process of hatching goes on; and that the larve 
are at length evolved in the ovaries." 
We shall here introduce Capt. Carmichael's observations, 
made on his return to Africa from the Mauritius. 
* Some time after the regiment returned from the Mauritius 
to the Cape, in 1815, I made a short excursion into the 
country, in company with a party of sportsmen, who wished 
to retreat for a few weeks from the dust and the South-Easters 
of Capetown. We left town on the morning of the 3d of 
January, and directed our course across the Isthmus which 
connects the Cape Peninsula with the mainland. Though it 
was about the middle of the dry season, we had the benefit 
of several heavy showers from the westward during our ride, 
with which we felt the less annoyed, though drenched to the 
skin, as they fixed the moving sand, and tempered the 
scorching heat of the atmosphere. In the rainy season, the 
whole of this plain is a series of marshes, intersected by 
ridges of sand. At the time we crossed it, these swamps 
were mostly dried up; but wherever the surface was in the 
least depressed, there were still manifest indications of the 
existence of water. "There can be no doubt that abundance of 
this element might be procured in every part of the Isthmus by 
digging to the depth of a few feet: at all events, by digging 
to the level of the sea, which is not much more, we are 
taught by experience, as well as by the laws of Hydrostatics, 
that not here alone, but in every region of the globe, a supply 
