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 FIt/, (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 larvae 

 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 



