BY EDWARD DOUBLEDAY. 33 



ringed with black and white ; these are mostly in the grass ^ 

 and are only to be obtained by sweeping, consequently ai'e 

 generally without legs ; I have, however, succeeded in ob- 

 taining one or two perfect specimens. The musquitoes of this 

 country are genuine CuUces, and come very near to C. annu- 

 latus ; their bite is very annoying, and if you stand still but for 

 a moment in the low or swampy grounds, they attack you by 

 dozens ; in the house we rarely see them ; their bite is not 

 worse than that of C. annulatus. In the south they are said 

 to be very large, and their bite to be very bad : many of the 

 wonderful stories current here have a reference to them, and I 

 shall relate two. 



1st. Some time since a quantity of very hard bricks were laid 

 by the side of the Father of Waters, for some building which 

 was to be erected on the shore ; on a sudden they all disap- 

 peared, — what became of them no one knew. The following 

 day the captain of a Mississippi steamer was descending the 

 stream, and, looking up in the air, a dark cloud appeared 

 approaching him : nearer and nearer came the cloud, and more 

 and more extraordinary appeared the outline of it. Was it a 

 flock of pigeons ? No ! What could it be ? He took out his 

 telescope, and lo it was a flight of musquitoes, each with a 

 young alligator under one wing, and a brick under the other. 

 The musquitoes were on a long journey ; the alligators were 

 for provisions on the road, the bricks were take n as whetstones 

 for their beaks. 



2d. A sportsman was walking by the side of the Mississippi, 

 he saw a huge musquito, of the kind called " gallynippers," 

 making directly towards him; he stepped on one side, and the 

 gallynipper passed him ; but in the line of his course was 

 a young locust tree, and he was going so fast that he could 

 not turn out of his course to avoid it; the insect's beak came 

 in contact with the tree, and passed right through; the sports- 

 man stepped back, struck the projecting end of the beak with 

 the butt-end of his rifle and clenched it, thus riveting the 

 gallynipper to the tree. 



I forgot to say that I have a good many fossorial Hymenop- 

 tera ; there are but few Chalcidites yet, but some very pretty 

 Ichneumonites. Here there are no reptiles, and oi Mammalia I 

 can get but few. There are many Ground Squirrels in the woods, 

 but I do not like to hurt them. I had one alive and loose i-' 



NO. I. VOL. V. F 



