BURNING FLIES. 113 



We were positively assured, that once over 

 the Cascades, there would be no mosquitos. 



If we escape the mosquitos, we are amongst 

 enemies quite as formidable, the Simulium or 

 sand-fly, and the Tabanus or breeze-fly. Be it 

 known to you, -ladies, that the males, or gentle- 

 men sand-flies, brulots of the French- Canadian 

 trappers, are not blood-suckers, but live on 

 flowers and sip the honey in indolent enjoyment; 

 what should have been the gentler sex are like 

 Dahoniean Amazons, the sanguinary spirits of 

 the tribe. In size, the sand-fly is not nearly so 

 large as the mosquito, and, instead of being a 

 slim, genteel blonde Madame Brulot, is as black as 

 a Guinea negress her body is short and dumpy, 

 her gauzy wings when folded nearly twice the 

 length of the lady herself, and her legs somewhat 

 long and slender. Her mouth is not a loveable 

 one, being a bundle of fearful lancets, the sheath 

 of which forms a tube through which the blood 

 is sucked after the barbed stilettoes have done 

 their work : an icorous fluid is in all probability 

 instilled with the puncture, hence the intense 

 irritation arising from the wound. 



Where the sand-fly lays her eggs is not, I be- 

 lieve, very well known, but it is more than likely 

 that they are deposited on the sterns of aquatic 



VOL. II. I 



